hey psst over here
imma let you in on a secret
you know words right?
yeah you know what i’m talking about
the good shit
anyway you know where words come from?
people just make them up! anyone can do it! you don’t need permission or anything!
here watch i’ll do it
the new words are “relip” and “thamagar”
there it’s done we have new words easy
i’m not gonna define them or anything that would be uncouth words don’t have definitions
but let me show you how to use them
when you say “why don’t you just?” that’s relip
when you talk for an hour about the minute boring details of a subject that’s thamagar
when you look at a problem and you think of all the other stuff in the area that you’ve done that’s like it and can use all of that to come up with a solution that’s thamagar
when you look at a problem and go “i don’t know much about this but here’s a crazy idea” and it works that’s relip
(when it doesn’t work it’s still relip you’re just not being very good at it)
when you can’t see the woods for the trees you’re being thamagar
when you forget that woods are made of trees you’re being relip
experts are almost always thamagar about their subject
when you’re learning something new you’re usually relip
when you can explain something precisely and carefully and answer people’s detailed questions about it you’re being thamagar
when you can explain something in a sentence with no weird words you’re being relip
the difference between me and @notateapot is we’re both relip about most of the shit we talk about but she wants to be thamagar while i like it this way
While my… esteemed sibling… is of course correct that words don’t “have” definitions, I believe it is overstating the case. It is still useful to offer definitions for words. Why else would we have dictionaries?
Despite the rather whimsical nature in which it introduced them, TC’s new words do appear to serve a useful function. As such I would like to suggest some provisional definitions for them:
Relip and thamagar describe perspectives on a subject. A perspective is relip if it is highly abstracted from the subject’s context, and as a result is able to ignore most of the details of it in order to focus on a few most salient points. It is thamagar if it sees the subject as deeply embedded in its context, with access to all its detail and understanding of how it connects to its surroundings.
A learner is typically relip because they do not yet have the context that will allow them to be thamagar. An experienced person is typically thamagar because they have spent enough time with the subject to have learned all its context and connections.
It is important to understand that neither of these things are good or bad. Relip pushes you in the direction of simple solutions, while thamagar allows you to solve problems for which no simple solution is currently possible. A relip perspective is helpful for clearly communicating your ideas, while a thamagar one allows you to elaborate on important details that were elided for the sake of clarity of presentation.
To tie this back in to my current project, I would suggest that rationalism encourages a relip perspective, while feminism encourages one that is thamagar.
see? uncouth
thetasteoffire