Talk:didaction

Noun or verb?

I'm not sure if this is a noun or a verb. The passage in which Munger coined the word is

Here’s another model from law practice: ...my father had another client who was a blowhard, an overreaching, unfair, pompous, difficult man. And I must have been 14 years old or thereabouts when I asked, “Dad, why do you do so much work for Mr. X, this overreaching blowhard, instead of working more for wonderful men like Grant McFayden?”

My father said, “Grant McFayden treats his employees right, his customers right, and his problems right. And if he gets involved with a psychotic, he quickly walks over to where the psychotic is and works out an exit as fast as he can. Therefore, Grant McFayden doesn’t have enough remunerative law business to keep you in Coca-Cola. But Mr. X is a walking minefield of wonderful legal business.”

This case demonstrates one of the troubles with practicing law. To a considerable extent, you’re going to be dealing with grossly defective people. They create an enormous amount of the remunerative law business. And even when your own client is a paragon of virtue, you’ll often be dealing with gross defectives on the other side or even on the bench. That’s partly what drove me out of the profession. The rest was my own greed, but my success in serving greed partly allowed me to make easier the process of being honorable and sensible. Like Ben Franklin observed, “It’s hard for an empty sack to stand upright.”

I’d argue that my father’s model when I asked him about the two clients was totally correct didaction. He taught me the right lesson. The lesson? As you go through life, sell your services once in a while to an unreasonable blowhard if that’s what you must do to feed your family. But run your own life like Grant McFayden.

It could be read as a noun: the model is the didaction. Or it could be read as a verb: the father's use of the model was didaction. Munger doesn't say "the didaction" or "a didaction", just "didaction". Cagliost (talk) 12:33, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@J3133, I see you updated the entry. What do you think about the above? Cagliost (talk) 16:47, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@Cagliost Didaction is an uncountable noun. It can't be a verb, since something like "I am didactioning" or "I didaction every day" clearly sounds wrong. Ioaxxere (talk) 16:49, 28 December 2023 (UTC)