Good English teachers know their dumb

Miss Aspidistra Flynn, Head of the English Department at St. Isadore of Seville High School in McAlisterville, Pennsylvania, writes:

Dear Grammar Genius,

My ninth graders and I follow your blog religiously. We profit immensely from your knowledge and wisdom regarding English grammar and usage, but mostly we enjoy and revel in your continual wit, good humor, and the droll ripostes you drop into your daily column. Repeated quotations from your insightful and humorous writing, along with the gay laughter they provoke, echo throughout the day in the halls of St. Isadore of Seville High School.

Yesterday a question came up in class which only you can answer. (I willingly acknowledge that, being the product of a late 20^th century American public education, I myself am of course limited in the amount and quality of knowledge I am qualified to impart to the students).

The question is this: What is the difference in meaning and proper usage between the words “perspicacity” and “perspicuity”?

I must add that I have been refraining from retiring solely because of the usefulness of your blog in my classroom. God bless you for your work.

Sincerely,

Aspidistra ("call me Aspie!") Flynn

Dear Aspie,

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement. Your frank avowal of the manifest incompetence of modern-day English teachers is curiously refreshing. Your right: when it comes to English, you English teachers all really are awful dumb. Would to God that English teachers everywhere in our crumbling education system were as honest as you are.

In answer to your question, those two fancy words that you said are both pretty big, so actually there is not much point in piddling around and trying to draw some hoity-toity distinctions between them. I would advise your ninth graders to just avoid both of them.

The Grammer Genious