Is there a compromise between "intellectual" and "pretentious"?

[Sethomas]

eh, I guess I forgot to add that true pretension is something I see a lot. I live in a college town! Basically, I judge someone as being pretentious when their speaking tendencies, e.g. diction, annunciation, &c., are done with an obvious indication that the person is more concerned with how the delivery of information will be taken than she is interested in the spoken matter itself.

In my college town, one that houses a Big 10 University, what I find is that people here are far, far more interested in pursuing academia as a reflection of themselves over a reflection of their interests. As a result, a cheap simulacrum of intellectual discourse is actually preferred over the real thing. People here are bent on saying stupid shit to sound smart. This is striking to me because I've also attended a different university where the academic standards were much, much higher. People there knew that they'd already proved themselves as being among the world intellectual élite, so they didn't find it necessary to talk about it all the time or slip it in as they recount the quality of their hollandaise while breakfasting. Real, forced pretension is an insecurity thing, and yes, I do know how ubiquitous it is.

Also: having borne from a redneck heritage, I am very regularly thrown into a Sophie's Choice of sounding pretentious by talking in my normal voice, or talking like those around me to make it more comfortable until I am justly attacked for condescending. Eh!

[Jeanette X]

Originally Posted by Sethomas

Also: having borne from a redneck heritage, I am very regularly thrown into a Sophie's Choice of sounding pretentious by talking in my normal voice, or talking like those around me to make it more comfortable until I am justly attacked for condescending. Eh!

Did it occur to you that maybe you are just plain insufferable either way?

[Brandon]

It's kind of an insidious word -- especially in relation to the arts, where overreaching oneself is often necessary toward making truly interesting work. I've stopped using it altogether, because it's pretty much impossible to find a reliable standard on which to use it. For example: over the last couple of years I've gotten to know some New York City-based writers, and most of them had come from backgrounds unlike my own (wealthy, "intellectual class," etc). I got irked by some of the ways they acted and communicated, and my first thought was "pretentious," but, then, if they grew up in environments where that sort of thing was commonplace, then they're not really pretentious at all. The word basically means that there's a disparity between what you actually are and what you present yourself to be. And, really, who's in the position to judge that sort of thing? Sometimes you "know" that someone is being pretentious, but most of the time you just think you know, and then you look like a dismissive asshole.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/thea...thbeingpretent