The other day we we're arguing about a certain newspaper columnist who uses grammar that is so out of touch with everyday speech,to the point where you hardly ever understand what he's talking about.Most of the time,he just plain pisses you off.
I'm sure all the words he uses are out there in the dictionary,but he sounds much like a grammatical wankster,spewing things you'd have to look up.
My friend argued that the author was cool,he's on this level you can't reach him,blah blah blah.He also went to on to add that he(my friend) was a wordsmith.I told him that I too was a wordsmith(this is an opinion held by quite a few of the people who've been to my site,amongst other literary places I've been).He then goes of and asks me:
"What is......."
"What is ........"
Words whose meaning I didn't understand.
I told him that if we use the term wordsmith a la ironsmith,then what he was doing was holding up a piece of fine iron he had in his workshop,or a tool from his toolbox,not being a wordsmith.And while you need to have both the iron to work on the tools to work with,possesion of both is not being an iron smith.
It's a similar story with the virtuosos.
They don't keep in touch with their audiences.And music is communication.Guitar is not a one way process,where there's just you,the virtuoso,burning me,the listener,with your skill and speed and what have.It has to go both ways.And if I can't relate to what you're doing,you've basically lost it,since it beats the point of me being your audience if I don't understand you.
That's how I see it.