Update: Shibboleth

I shibboleths with Lauren and Kerbey Lane ( Eggs, Biscuits & Gravy, you know it’s good for the soul ) yesterday.

I think this phrase, quite like no other, is a shibboleth of “I went to a university and got a degree of consequence” . Ironically, it is usually the people who adopted the shibboleth for exactly that reason, who most misuse it, leaving your fry cook’s teeth it ill-repair owing to the induced gnashing.

The discussion went something like this:

Lauren: So you wrote that people use “beg the question” as a shibbloleth of having had “higher education”. Me: Yes. Lauren: But that you know the word “shibboleth” is a shibboleth of that selfsame phenomenon: “I have higher education and am using a word for its shibbolethic power.” Me: Yes, and because the meaning of shibboleth is appropriate to use to describe the phenomenon.

I could be off in my count, but that’s a triple-irony-count discourse score.

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