Comments on: Lazy Extroverts

By: Graham

Graham — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:14:31 +0000

Hi Justine. My spelling of extravert comes from my undergraduate days as a psychologist in the 1970s. In those days, quite a while after Carl Jung used the term around 1920, but very soon after Eysenk brought it into common parlance in the late 1960s, there wasn’t any other way to spell it.

Dictionaries, I find, simply follow common usage – and that drifts, as we know. I suspect the way introvert/extravert breaks the symmetry people would normally expect is the main reason one of them had to start changing. I suppose I should try to keep up with how people are spelling things these days and not just assume they’ve got it wrong if things have changed over the past 30 years. So, sorry about that.

I’m actually quite anal about etymology (to shift from Jung to Freud for a moment) and I hate it when the history of a word is lost because people don’t understand it, don’t value it, or simply want English to be more phonetic than it is. A word’s etymology is the history of the word, it shows how people constructed it, where it came from, and how its meaning has shifted over the years. A word that retains its original spelling can often tell us what it means in a way a modified or modernised spelling cannot. ‘Extravert’ came from the German word extraviert and was constructed from the Latin roots extra and vertere.

I know no-one likes this kind of pedantry anymore but aren’t writers supposed to love language? Don’t you just hate it when you’re in a minority of one?

Graham.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:31:42 +0000

I could use and extra vert. I keep misplacing mine. If I have an extra one laying around, I’d be much happier and more sociable.

What color is your vert?

By: Justine

Justine — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:42:11 +0000

Graham: Dunno who your spelling authority is but mine’s the OED which is totally fine with that spelling of the word. So’s the American Merriam-Webster. There are two variants: I prefer “extrovert” to “extravert”. I’m sorry your mileage varies.

By: Graham

Graham — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:32:07 +0000

Actually, Justine, you’re a lazy extrAvert. ExtrOvert is a misspelling. I suppose if people pronounced the word properly, they wouldn’t misspell it

By: Letitia

Letitia — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:47:36 +0000

this might be a reason to move you from the cozy couch:

i bought mangosteens in my grocery store yesterday. perhaps, as a mangosteen fancier, you’re already aware they are finally available in the us. as someone introduced to mangosteens via your blog, i jumped on them, shook my case of four in the air, and cried, “yes! they are real!” they were also delicious. melissa’s produce is the company importing them–irradiated–from thailand. i had one; it was delicious.

By: Camille

Camille — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:03:49 +0000

I love social activities, I can speak in front of large groups, even work retail, but if I don’t get the time to myself I need to resettle my brain, I become batshit crazy in seconds.

Oh god, yes.

It would be nice if extroverts understood introverts a bit better. Then we wouldn’t have to defend ourselves to our own friends.

OH GOD, YES.

By: Diana

Diana — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:59:43 +0000

Actually, I think Justine’s post is a perfect example of why introverts work so hard to label themselves. Extroverts truly don’t understand what extended socializing does to an introvert and then label it as “rubbish.” I love social activities, I can speak in front of large groups, even work retail, but if I don’t get the time to myself I need to resettle my brain, I become batshit crazy in seconds.

It would be nice if extroverts understood introverts a bit better. Then we wouldn’t have to defend ourselves to our own friends.

By: Corey J Feldman

Corey J Feldman — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:47:14 +0000

I think we spend to much time and energy labeling ourselves and others. Most people are more complicated then that. I can be introverted – I can be extroverted. Both are genuine qualities of me. And all of it is of course perception which is by definition subjective.

By: Doyce

Doyce — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:41:24 +0000

The question, as some folks have said in long-form, isn’t whether you enjoy going out and socializing, it’s whether or not that activity leaves you feeling energized and excited, or tapped out and ready for bed.

If the former: extrovert. If the latter: introvert.

By: Amy

Amy — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:51:32 +0000

What about a fake extrovert? I’m naturally an introvert, but I’ve learned to fake being an extrovert when needed.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:28:44 +0000

MBTI charts are great for helping to understand characters who do not think/make decisions like you do.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:27:35 +0000

Maybe I should say that a Lazy Extrovert will likely come back as any one of the four ‘NFs’, but to some degree, these are like astrological signs. They are generic enough that you’ll see something of yourself in any of them.

I tend to fall into either and ENFP or ENFJ when I take the tests, though I can tell when I am on a question that would affect my E and J, so I COULD be any of the NFs. And of course, someone once told me that an ENFP often has trouble detemining whether they are a P or a J, so I guess I am likely an ENFP.

By: genevieve

genevieve — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:34:55 +0000

I like the look of that ENFP assessment. Maybe I will finally knuckle down and do an MBTI after all. But if I don’t get what I think I am, if I’m an ENFP I can kick it out, right?
Lazy extrovert sounds just about right, JL.

By: JJ

JJ — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:27:36 +0000

According to Myers & Briggs, the Introvert/Extravert function is named for how a person draws energy. For instance, my Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ, which is described as the most extraverted of introvert types. I’m really social, bubbly, chatty, and love being around people, but ultimately, to “recharge my batteries” (so to speak), I need to be alone, hence why I am an introvert. For other people, my fiance for example, he is generally a man of few words, preferring to listen than to speak in social gatherings. However, he is an ESTP, which is an extraverted personality because he derives his energy from being with people.

By: robin

robin — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:19:27 +0000

Let’s not forget the misanthropic extroverts — just because you get along with people, doesn’t mean you like them. (Then there’s me, misanthropic introvert…maybe I’m lucky I’m not living in a cave in the mountains somewhere.)

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:35:18 +0000

I bet you’re all ENFPs on the MBTI test.

http://www.personalitypage.com/ENFP.html

“Unlike other Extraverted types, ENFPs need time alone to center themselves”

By: Mary Elizabeth S.

Mary Elizabeth S. — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 05:29:23 +0000

I’m an introverted extrovert. Make of it what you will.

~Mary

By: Dave H.

Dave H. — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 05:09:34 +0000

The Seattle Storm would *so* win the 2003 WNBA title! Sadly for them, it is 2008, and, well, not so much now.

Swin Cash comes back to Detroit tomorrow. That’s going to be so weird.

By: Chris McLaren

Chris McLaren — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 05:02:43 +0000

(raises hand!)

Another one over here.