Thursday, January 5, 2012

word choice - What is the practical difference between “ignorant” and “naïve”?

As these terms are defined in online dictionaries, ignorant means a lack of education, while naïve means a lack of worldly experience.




  • What is the practical difference between these two?

  • When would I use one and not the other?



We could consider education to be the acquisition of knowledge, and experience to be knowledge acquired first-hand. In that case, these two words would have no practical difference, yet I have had people strongly disagree with me in some discussions.




One person tried to explain that ignorant is when a person doesnt know about something, whereas naïve is when a person does or should know about something but fails to act on the knowledge or fails to acquire the knowledge before acting.



Could someone please clarify?

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