Plight of the Pedestrian: Part 1
I haven’t done the etymological research, but somehow ‘pedestrian’ came to be synonymous with: banal, commonplace, dull, ordinary, unexciting, etc. If you want to see a photo that really demonstrates what abuse this is, here is the photo from the wikipedia page for ‘pedestrian’. And what about ‘paedophile’? Even if they don’t share a common root, you can see what I’m getting at. This injustice has gone unsung for long enough.
The roots of the word have to do with feet and going by foot and the like. This makes sense because that is what the word means. So next time you speak of someone having a “pedestrian lifestyle”, just think of what you are really saying: their life has something to do with feet. Doesn’t sound so cool and literate now, does it?
(to be continued)
July 28th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
this is what you’re doing instead of working on your phil language paper?
September 7th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Yes, some of us here at fuckphilosophy.com have responsibilities other than putting the “fuck” in philosophy (as in trying to do some real philosophy), but that doesn’t mean that this is a wasted endeavor.
February 19th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
[...] is another (Part 1here) inherent drawback to pedestrianism (more below on the problem with terminology). Dudes have [...]