An editor at a scholarly journal had a question about a review I wrote for them. She quoted the phrase, "However, pace Hall and Ames ...." and asked me to "clarify" the word "pace"!! I tried to think of a charitable interpretation of her question, but all I can think is that the editor was unfamiliar with this word.

Civilization is dead!

Hi again Bryan,

You also sent me scrambling for the dictionary with this sense of ‘pace’. Believe it or not, there are some educated folks out there that don’t share your prodigious vocabulary. Cut us some slack. I was always instructed to write with my audience in mind. If you don’t, please don’t hold it against us if we don’t catch your drift. Personally, I love reading material that challenges me with a barrage of sesquipedalians and erudite locutions, but not everyone shares my passion for arcane or exotic verbiage. And many would say with a sigh of relief, thank heaven for that!

Bryan

Perhaps you could have helped your reader/editor by ensuring that 'pace' was in italics - the convention for non-English words being used in English. That would, at least, have alerted her to the notion that you were not using the common or garden English word spelled the same way. My dictionary (Concise Oxford) suggests the italicised form.

cheer

the sunshine warrior