Letters to the Editor
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reverse snobbery in America
Back when I was in the process of getting married, I had a show-down with one of my bridesmaids during which she revealed that she Secretly Never Really Liked Me. The reason she gave was that I used big words on purpose to make her feel stupid. I've been married 14 years now; alas, I can't remember any of the words she listed as examples, but I assure you none of them would have required an unabridged dictionary to look up. Possibly "assure" was on the list. They were normal, everyday words to me. I'm sure they would have been normal, everyday words to almost all readers of Salon. I certainly wasn't picking them with an awareness that she didn't know them.
Nevertheless, apparently I really did make her feel stupid. What a terrible, tragic world she lived in, suspecting everyone around her of trying to make her miserable, pretending to be a loving friend to people she disliked! I'm not like that, myself. I have no art. Which is why I said, in that moment of honest shock, "No, I'm not trying to make you feel stupid, the problem is that you really are stupid."
The problem goes both ways. Republicans suspect us of trying to make them feel stupid. And we suspect Republicans of really being stupid. They suspect us of being the sort of people who care that they don't know the big words. Which is only fair. We are the sort of people who care that they don't know the bigs words.