Posted by Jonathan Labaree on October 18, 2004 at 20:04:23 from 207.5.234.19 user JLabaree.
In Reply to: Re: Coarse xxx( formerly Re: Mixed Moss 2004) posted by Eric Abraham on October 18, 2004 at 13:53:05:
Pretentious sailing is making a fuss about it.
I would just add that in addition to making a fuss about it, there’s also the issue of intention. I suspect that most of us Tarboardians who sail do so simply because we enjoy it (i.e., file us under “unpretentious”). Many of the pretentious sailors I’ve met, however, sail for other reasons such as: it’s fashionable, it’s expensive (it can be), it’s competitive, it’s showy, it's (can be) elitist. In most cases, it’s hard to tell if a pretentious sailor actually enjoys sailing because they’re too busy showing you how pretentious they are about it.
It can, however, go the other way. Some folks go to great lengths to show how unpretentious they are. That’s just as bad, which is why I tend to focus on someone’s intention. Someone may genuinely love sailing, but have all the trappings of a pretentious sailor only because that’s what they were taught. I’ll take that any day over someone who studiously avoids any sign of pretension in an effort to be pretentious about being unpretentious.