Side note on "smart" and "posh": Bryan Ferry is an interesting case. Working class, but attended that crucible of 60s upward (and other directions) mobility, art school. Fine Art degree, then teaching til music career. Clearly an aesthete by temperament (easily seen), he wears Savile Row suits and hunts to hounds (was married for 22 years to an upper class girl who hunted from the time she was 12). Of course this does not make him "posh", but really in today's world it's hard to miss his identification.
All this being said, it is good to be reminded that when I pronounce on "normal usage" in the UK, it is coming from a particular place of (as I said before) age, education and social class. I must remember this when giving such confident declarations in the future!
2025-08-14 19:06:32
How fascinating, I have just looked up smart in the OED and the main usage for e.g. clothes seems to be "Attractively neat and stylish, relatively formal". It's true, I can imagine if someone asks what you think of an outfit, and you don't know them all that well and want to reassure them you might say "very smart", but generally speaking most people I know would use it in the way following, which is "Fashionable, elegant, sophisticated; belonging to or associated with fashionable or high society." Like so much else in UK English, it looks like it might be more class-coded than I realised.
And just before those two usages, despite what I have said before, the following: "Clever, intelligent, knowledgeable; capable, adept; quick at learning, responding intelligently to a situation, etc.; astute, shrewd; (of an action) characterized by cleverness or astuteness." In my experience this usage is rare here, although possibly more common as a result of American movies, literature etc.
2025-08-14 18:39:48
Interestingly, none of you seem to be talking about "intelligent" as opposed to the other two words. It's hard for me to get my head round, because as I say "smart" is not often used that way here - except in the case of something like "street smarts".
I would say that most people in the UK who think about such things would think of "clever" and "intelligent" as almost synonyms, and that both (while frequently connected with education and knowledge) could possibly be present in exceptional people who have had almost no access to either, but who have what I think nous is calling "wits". And then, there are people who are particularly gifted in certain ways, for example with an innate understanding of mechanical (or spatial) processes. At least, that's how I understand the usual usage in the UK, but I may be extrapolating from my own and my (i.e. of age, education, social class) cohort's conception. nous's definitions @05.56 strike me more as something to do with personality, or turn of mind, rather than actual intellectual ability.
So maybe all our understanding of these terms is idiosyncratic....how fascinating this stuff is.
2025-08-14 11:59:56
They would rather be clever than smart, and they relished the idea of their cleverness winning over their customer's intelligence.
Leaving the gilded age aside, I was interested in this comment of nous's. I recently had to explain that often, when English people said something was brilliant, we mean great, funny or marvellous in some way, as opposed to "brilliantly intelligent". So I'm very interested in "clever" v "smart", and either's relation to intelligence. We don't here use "smart" very much for that sort of meaning, in the UK it tends to mean something like posh (a smart address, a smart outfit etc). But, generally speaking, I don't think we distinguish much if at all between clever and intelligent. Am I right in thinking that nous means here to imply that "clever" is different from "intelligent"? And if so, how? Could it be something like "crafty", or "cunning"?
2025-08-13 19:43:04
Trump is a vulgar clown, and his residence in Trump Tower reflects that. I don't care. Whatever floats his boat.
But that kind of garish, ostentatious display doesn't belong in one of the the physical seats of our national government.[Not to mention, of course, an historic building.]
God knows, I agree with that, and I have to admit that many of my tastes and attitudes are pretty snobbish. The Jantelagen aspect is also an interesting point. I realise I've never had any problem with mocking or criticising Ubu's taste at e.g. Mar a Lago, possibly because he's rich and fair game. I think it was the "Regional Car Dealership" thing that worried me.
2025-08-13 16:19:44
Cheez Whiz: it wasn't so much the piece I was talking about (as I said I found it interesting and informative), as the reaction it (most particularly the coinage Regional Car Dealership Rococo) provoked in me. While it made me laugh, to me the name RCDR had an unmistakeable whiff of class (de haut en bas) contempt. But then again, maybe that's more just from an English viewpoint.
2025-08-12 13:25:33
PS Maybe it's because such matters in the UK are so absolutely coded by social class, and awareness of that and its myriad disadvantages is impossible to avoid.
2025-08-12 13:23:21
I enjoyed Cheez Whiz's link, which was interesting and informative. I laughed at Regional Car Dealership Rococo (it's perfect!), but it still left me obscurely uncomfortable.
Tempting and enjoyable as it can be to mock Trump, and his absurd and transparent pretensions, I couldn't shake the feeling that sneering at someone's ignorance, particularly in the matter of taste, immediately marks one out as a member of the kind of "elites" that have understandably caused such vitriolic resentment. A sense of superiority, no matter how easily explained, always makes me question how justifiable such feelings are/can be.
I'm not preaching here - I've had to work out why I ended up feeling so uncomfortable after reading it and laughing, and this is just my first stab at trying to account for that feeling.
2025-08-11 16:09:49
hsh: I agree. But I liked her take on it He begins telling me about how America’s biggest problem is “decades of mass immigration”. I point out that the US is, you know, a nation of immigrants, to which he responds: “It was originally founded by people of north-west European ancestry.” I note there were people there before them. “There were native Americans, and they lost out,” he replies. “Sucks for them.” This is an odd comment from the spokesperson of a party claiming one of its key beliefs to be that “indigenous people have an inseparable bond with their homeland and are its natural stewards” to make.
and particularly when she says this: Cave turns to me. “So what’s your skill then, spinning stuff into a story?”
“No,” I reply. “My skill is keeping a straight face when someone tells me something, and inside I’m thinking: fucking hell.”
2025-08-11 13:07:14
A bunch of people I read were talking very enthusiastically about this piece by a FT journalist who went to a party for Curtis Yarvin and the "new, new right". It's reasonably insightful, and rather entertaining: https://archive.ph/qgC6d
Side note on "smart" and "posh": Bryan Ferry is an interesting case. Working class, but attended that crucible of 60s upward (and other directions) mobility, art school. Fine Art degree, then teaching til music career. Clearly an aesthete by temperament (easily seen), he wears Savile Row suits and hunts to hounds (was married for 22 years to an upper class girl who hunted from the time she was 12). Of course this does not make him "posh", but really in today's world it's hard to miss his identification.
All this being said, it is good to be reminded that when I pronounce on "normal usage" in the UK, it is coming from a particular place of (as I said before) age, education and social class. I must remember this when giving such confident declarations in the future!
How fascinating, I have just looked up smart in the OED and the main usage for e.g. clothes seems to be "Attractively neat and stylish, relatively formal". It's true, I can imagine if someone asks what you think of an outfit, and you don't know them all that well and want to reassure them you might say "very smart", but generally speaking most people I know would use it in the way following, which is "Fashionable, elegant, sophisticated; belonging to or associated with fashionable or high society." Like so much else in UK English, it looks like it might be more class-coded than I realised.
And just before those two usages, despite what I have said before, the following: "Clever, intelligent, knowledgeable; capable, adept; quick at learning, responding intelligently to a situation, etc.; astute, shrewd; (of an action) characterized by cleverness or astuteness." In my experience this usage is rare here, although possibly more common as a result of American movies, literature etc.
Interestingly, none of you seem to be talking about "intelligent" as opposed to the other two words. It's hard for me to get my head round, because as I say "smart" is not often used that way here - except in the case of something like "street smarts".
I would say that most people in the UK who think about such things would think of "clever" and "intelligent" as almost synonyms, and that both (while frequently connected with education and knowledge) could possibly be present in exceptional people who have had almost no access to either, but who have what I think nous is calling "wits". And then, there are people who are particularly gifted in certain ways, for example with an innate understanding of mechanical (or spatial) processes. At least, that's how I understand the usual usage in the UK, but I may be extrapolating from my own and my (i.e. of age, education, social class) cohort's conception. nous's definitions @05.56 strike me more as something to do with personality, or turn of mind, rather than actual intellectual ability.
So maybe all our understanding of these terms is idiosyncratic....how fascinating this stuff is.
They would rather be clever than smart, and they relished the idea of their cleverness winning over their customer's intelligence.
Leaving the gilded age aside, I was interested in this comment of nous's. I recently had to explain that often, when English people said something was brilliant, we mean great, funny or marvellous in some way, as opposed to "brilliantly intelligent". So I'm very interested in "clever" v "smart", and either's relation to intelligence. We don't here use "smart" very much for that sort of meaning, in the UK it tends to mean something like posh (a smart address, a smart outfit etc). But, generally speaking, I don't think we distinguish much if at all between clever and intelligent. Am I right in thinking that nous means here to imply that "clever" is different from "intelligent"? And if so, how? Could it be something like "crafty", or "cunning"?
Trump is a vulgar clown, and his residence in Trump Tower reflects that. I don't care. Whatever floats his boat.
But that kind of garish, ostentatious display doesn't belong in one of the the physical seats of our national government.[Not to mention, of course, an historic building.]
God knows, I agree with that, and I have to admit that many of my tastes and attitudes are pretty snobbish. The Jantelagen aspect is also an interesting point. I realise I've never had any problem with mocking or criticising Ubu's taste at e.g. Mar a Lago, possibly because he's rich and fair game. I think it was the "Regional Car Dealership" thing that worried me.
Cheez Whiz: it wasn't so much the piece I was talking about (as I said I found it interesting and informative), as the reaction it (most particularly the coinage Regional Car Dealership Rococo) provoked in me. While it made me laugh, to me the name RCDR had an unmistakeable whiff of class (de haut en bas) contempt. But then again, maybe that's more just from an English viewpoint.
PS Maybe it's because such matters in the UK are so absolutely coded by social class, and awareness of that and its myriad disadvantages is impossible to avoid.
I enjoyed Cheez Whiz's link, which was interesting and informative. I laughed at Regional Car Dealership Rococo (it's perfect!), but it still left me obscurely uncomfortable.
Tempting and enjoyable as it can be to mock Trump, and his absurd and transparent pretensions, I couldn't shake the feeling that sneering at someone's ignorance, particularly in the matter of taste, immediately marks one out as a member of the kind of "elites" that have understandably caused such vitriolic resentment. A sense of superiority, no matter how easily explained, always makes me question how justifiable such feelings are/can be.
I'm not preaching here - I've had to work out why I ended up feeling so uncomfortable after reading it and laughing, and this is just my first stab at trying to account for that feeling.
hsh: I agree. But I liked her take on it
He begins telling me about how America’s biggest problem is “decades of mass immigration”. I point out that the US is, you know, a nation of immigrants, to which he responds: “It was originally founded by people of north-west European ancestry.” I note there were people there before them. “There were native Americans, and they lost out,” he replies. “Sucks for them.” This is an odd comment from the spokesperson of a party claiming one of its key beliefs to be that “indigenous people have an inseparable bond with their homeland and are its natural stewards” to make.
and particularly when she says this:
Cave turns to me. “So what’s your skill then, spinning stuff into a story?”
“No,” I reply. “My skill is keeping a straight face when someone tells me something, and inside I’m thinking: fucking hell.”
A bunch of people I read were talking very enthusiastically about this piece by a FT journalist who went to a party for Curtis Yarvin and the "new, new right". It's reasonably insightful, and rather entertaining:
https://archive.ph/qgC6d