Lecture 22: Cranky Words and Cool Words
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ż In a negative sense, phlegmatic can mean “cold, apathetic,
sluggish,” as in: “Her passionate plea evoked nothing but a
phlegmatic shrug from her teenage son.”z Of course, phlegmatic brings to mind phlegm, but what does
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medicine, phlegm was considered to be one of the four humors
of the body—along with blood, black bile, and yellow bile—that
needed to be in balance to sustain health. Phlegm was thought to
cause apathy, and people who were cold and unemotional were said
to have an imbalance of this humor—too much phlegm. From this,
we get the word phlegmatic.Stoic (adjective)Seemingly indifferent to or unaffected by joy, grief, pleasure or pain.z Stoic is a close synonym for phlegmatic EXW WKHUH LV D ¿QH
distinction between the two.
ż According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms,
phlegmatic “implies a temperament or constitution in which
emotion is hard to arouse.” Thus, phlegmatic carries the
suggestion of inborn or natural lack of emotion.ż Stoic, however, suggests restraint that has been gained through
self-discipline and as a matter of principle. Stoic people have
trained themselves to suppress pain and emotion. For example:
“The mountain man showed a stoic indifference to hunger
and cold.”z The adjective stoic came from Stoicism, a radical philosophy
founded and taught by Zeno in Athens around 300 B.C.E. Zeno
taught that happiness could be attained by the use of reason and
by repressing emotion and becoming indifferent to pleasure and