posted
I'm having serious issues with an alleged word in the book I'm editing. Here's the whole sentence so you can get some context (warning: this is a very rambly sentence with several errors).
quote:Despite what has been described as "golden ages" in both print and broadcast journalism, opportunities for serious news gathering have been reduced through a dependence on inexperienced students, budget cuts and a lack of professional oversight contributing to what is described some as a flawed laboratory system which tends to produce "quiestic" students ill-suited to for the pure practice of journalism.
I can't find "quiestic" in any dictionary. A Google search turns up five (and only five) instances of the word, but they're all used in essentially the same way. Is this some new buzzword I don't know? It seems that if it were, there'd be more Google hits. Is it a misspelling? That's all I can come up with, but I can't figure out what word it should be. Of course, this book has seriously impaired my cognitive abilities, so maybe I'm just not seeing something. Any help would be appreciated.
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posted
Maybe it's supposed to be "quietic," an adjective formed from "quietism." That's the best I'm coming up with.
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1 A form of Christian mysticism enjoining passive contemplation and the beatific annihilation of the will.
1 A state of quietness and passivity.
"Quixotic"?
1 Caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unreachable goals; idealistic without regard to practicality.
2 Capricious; impulsive: “At worst his scruples must have been quixotic, not malicious” (Louis Auchincloss).
3 Like Don Quixote; romantic to extravagance; absurdly chivalric; apt to be deluded. ``Feats of quixotic gallantry.'' --Prescott.
4 adj : not sensible about practical matters; unrealistic; "as quixotic as a restoration of medieval knighthood"; "a romantic disregard for money"; "a wild-eyed dream of a world state"
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posted
No kidding. Try reading the entire 365-page manuscript. I can feel my brain cells exploding one by one.
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You know, taken out of context, that sentence is a total word salad kat. It really threw me for a second.
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quote:Wow! A lot of us did that by drinking too much in college.
Just think: I get all the brain-cell-killing fun of drinking, but I have no hangovers, and I get paid eleven bucks an hour for it!
Da_Goat, he got his BA and MA in journalism at BYU and a PhD from Michigan State (also in journalism, I assume). BYU's journalism program is somewhat of a joke. But I have no idea how he got a PhD. Pat testified that he's just as bad in class as he is in this book. How the heck did he write a dissertation?
Actually, I think he might have meant "quietistic." That seems to fit better than "quiescent."
[ February 02, 2004, 04:19 PM: Message edited by: Jon Boy ]
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posted
Silly, JB. Don't you have a copy of the super-secret old school, hard scrabble, 'pure' journalists dictionary? I'm sure it's in there. And I'm sure it means exactly what he thinks it means and is entirely appropriate for the context in which it is used.
BTW, who are these 'some' that are describing the "flawed laboratory system"? Doesn't he mean, "which I would describe"? And where does he get the whole "golden age of journalism" from? I've never run across anything but pronouncements by doomsayers. I think his research is 30 years old.
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quote:BTW, who are these 'some' that are describing the "flawed laboratory system"? Doesn't he mean, "which I would describe"?
Of course that's what he means. But that would require him to use the first person (which he usually avoids, except when he slips into it) or his awkward attempts at third person. *shudder* And also, it might show his personal bias, and we can't have any of that in a history. Unless, of course, you replace "me" with "some." Then it's alright.
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Jon Boy, find the person who wrote it and beat him over the head with it. (The manuscript, that is. ) Posts: 4569 | Registered: Dec 2003
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When I saw who started this thread I got scared, very scared. I mean if Jon Boy doesn't know the answer to a grammar/word question, who does?! AJ
Posts: 11265 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Definitely quiestic given the context of unthinking compliance to the will of Authority: in this case, nonquestioning memorization-and-regurgitation of blah blah blah from The Professor. Quietism is a deliberate choice to accept the what is. Quiestic implies just doing; ie without thought about either the task, or whether one has a choice. An acquiescence without the purposeful ac so to speak; and not the quietude of quiescent.
One of those weirdo words like asteropoeic. Unlikely to be found in most dictionaries, perhaps none. Yet once used in a text written by an Authority in some field or another, and so forever repeated in obscure academic papers while rarely-to-never seeing use under any other circumstance. Less meant to communicate than to be a "secret handshake".
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