‘Studious’ silence has nothing to do with books
What you need to know:
- Silences do not read books and, therefore, cannot be studious.
- Silence is merely the mode by which the President sometimes expresses his “studiousness”.
When, by a certain date, President Kenyatta had not specified whether or not he would travel to The Hague, a page-one Sunday Nation pointer called it “Studious Silence”.
The question is: If studious is an adjectival form of the noun study, how can silence be described as studious?
No. Silences do not read books and, therefore, cannot be studious.
Yet the sub-editor’s use was correct and powerful. Here, rather, the President’s attitude, not his silence, is what is studious.
Silence is merely the mode by which he sometimes expresses his “studiousness”.
The President’s silence can be described as studious, not because he is a bookworm— much less because he is too busy studying for final exams to answer stupid questions from every Tom, Dick and Harry in the opposition— but only because the silence is deliberate, thoughtful and calculated.
It is in this extended sense that the adjective studious has branched out to capture such other semantical nuances as “precise”, “careful”, “serious” and “hard-working”.
REMAIN STUDENTS
A studious student is one thoroughly devoted to his or her studies in all these senses. For the English adjective studious comes from the Latin adjective studiosus, meaning “devoted to”.
That reminds us of the devotion which an artist gives to her or his studio, the room in which she or he works and, as it were, “studies” to perfect her or his art, be it photography, filming, music, painting or recording.
That is why all scholars— no matter how accomplished they may be— remain students in their particular domains.
Though extraordinary and inimitable, even England’s Stephen Hawking is nothing more than a student of the physical universe.
Hawking’s studio — namely, his library, the book-filled room in which the British genius studies the origin of matter and “arrows” of time— is also known as a study.
To study is to engage in the search for, learning and comprehension of one aspect or another — or all— of our world’s physical, chemical, biological, mental and social realities.
To study is to examine, research, investigate, scrutinise, analyse, synthesise, etc.— often by experimentation— to ascertain the reality of the things and phenomena which assault our sensual and logico-mathematical organs.
Knowledge, then— everything we acquire by means of specific or individual intelligence, hands and tongues— is usually the reward of studying.
That is why, although a person may be born with a certain aptitude (a natural gift), one may also acquire it long after birth, by means either of socio-environmental influence or of study.
'STUDIED ARROGANCE'
Here the adjective “studied arrogance” is arrogance which has been socially acquired, carefully planned and practised only in such circumstances to yield great advantages, especially in the field of competitive politics.
A possessor of studied arrogance knows exactly when to behave with disarming humility.
The American media frequently described Kenya’s Tom Mboya as a “town sophisticate” full of studied arrogance.
That could only mean that Tom Mboya was not born with any arrogance but that he had acquired it through his upbringing, schooling and political activity.
