EDUCATION

[Dr. Goodword]

• education •

Pronunciation: e-jê-key-shên • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, mass

Meaning: 1. Instruction, teaching, providing knowledge and developing the skills for using it. 2. The knowledge obtained from instruction, as to have a good education. 3. A program of instruction for imparting knowledge and thinking skills. 4. Pedagogy, the discipline of teaching how to teach.

Notes: Because education plays such a central role in industrialized nation, this word has procreated a large family: educative, educatory, and educational are adjectives meaning "providing education". Educable means "capable of being educated". Someone who teaches is an educator and someone who teaches teaching is an educationist.

In Play: Since educational institutions around the world are booting up for a new academic year, today's contributor (see Word History) thought this word appropriate for the season. The psychologist B. F. Skinner once said, "Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten." Oscar Wilde, on the other hand, thought that nothing worth knowing can be taught. What does Dr. Goodword think? "Education is expensive but not nearly so much as ignorance." Everyone has an opinion; click here for a sampling.

Word History: Today's Good Word comes down from Latin educatus, the past participle of educare "to lead out, bring up" from ex "out of" + ducere "to lead". The original metaphor was probably that of leading someone out of the darkness. The noun from the Latin verb ducere, ductio(n) "leading, carrying", came down to Italian as doccia "(water) pipe, conduit", where it was borrowed by French as douche "shower". (Today's Good Word has a special significance for Katie O'Briant, a student from Magnolia, Texas and a frequenter of our own, very educational Alpha Agora)

[Brazilian dude]

Doc, do you flaunt your education by spelling Italian with two l's?

Brazilian dude

P.S. My emoticons are not working.

[Stargzer]

. . .
P.S. My emoticons are not working.

Make sure you didn't accidentally check the Disable Smilies box. That's the only thing I can think of.

[Brazilian dude]

They have gone back to their previous condition owing to some inexplicable work of thaumaturgy.

Brazilian dude

[Stargzer]

It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature. Or Dr. Goodword.

[tcward]

BD, did you determine who the thaumaturge is/was?

-Tim

[Brazilian dude]

I think the problem lies in the other computer I use at work. This one doesn't have any problem with smileys.

Brazilian dude

[M. Henri Day]

Doc, do you flaunt your education by spelling Italian with two l's? ...

I suggest that anyone, especially anyone as well-educated as our good doctor, who spells «Italian» with two «l»s is flouting, rather than flaunting, his or her education....

Henri