Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
On the radio the other day I heard (or thought I heard) someone use resticent where reticent might be expected. At first I assumed the speaker had merely been mis-stressing ‘resistant’, for regular listeners become inured to the mis- or re-stressing of the simplest and most inoffensive words, and resistance too would have made some sort of sense. A second thought imagined an eggcornish aspect to this usage, resting rather than working, passive rather than active, retiring rather than assertive.
Now Hollywood recognizes that this resticent, quiet-spoken product of eastern Pennsyl vania’s anthracite coal fields is growing steadily in boxoffice importance.
I have been resticent in putting this one up because the engine is slightly blurred in motion, I’m hoping that I can get away with it…
LONESOME DOVE is a testament to the once-great pioneer ranchland resolute resticent rough-and-ready cowboy but there’s a strong tilt toward what’s to come.
There is no problem in it but it shouldn’t be that his/her resticence make the person unable to create interpersonal relationships or bonding or pulls him down .
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I think that blending with resistant is very likely, with eggcornical-tending results even without resting being involved. Someone who is reticent is resistant to pressure to communicate, and refusing to speak or interact is a classic form of (passive) resistance.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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The second example also shows how the meaning of reticent is changing. It used to mean “reluctant to speak”, but now people are often (maybe even more often) using it to mean just “reluctant”. Dictionary.com even gives that as a definition of “reticent”.
Bruce
“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin
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The example you refer to, if I understand it, is about reluctance to post a picture. Is that not right? That is a reluctance to communicate, in my book: I could use the word in that context pretty easily, though it feels wrong to me to use it in other contexts where, granted, lots of people do nowadays (e.g. ?* reticent to go to sleep, reticent to sit down, reticent to leave the room , what have you.)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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