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komponisto comments on Making History Available - Less Wrong
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This is actually something I want to take care to avoid in this particular context. I do, after all, openly rate Weird Al as aesthetically superior to the greatest classical masterpieces. Also: cheap wine is usually better wine, caviar tastes terrible, those hats look stupid, peacock's tails are largely pointless and I've never read Wittgenstein or that book with the whale in it.
(There are other groups that I would of course take efforts to signal insiderhood.)
Maybe instead of insiderhood, you should consider it merely as a signal of non-ignorance, specifically of the fact that "classical" is the name of a historical era.
I didn't realize your aesthetic resources were so scarce as to put them in competition. Personally I think the world has plenty of room for both.
I probably wouldn't care so much about it if it weren't the subject of an opera by the guy who wrote my favorite book.
I quoted the first sentence from wikipedia. That is the definition of classical music that matches what most people - most certainly including Nancy - mean when they say 'classical music'.
I am well aware of the historical era. Declaring that by relaying the common usage definition of 'classical music' I must be ignorant of the classical era is itself a strong signal of being unaware of how human language works.
One group in which I like to signal myself an insider is 'Science'. We still use the word atom for something that can be broken down into protons, neutrons and electrons - and even the latter is a simplification. The relevance should be obvious.
No, it's just that by going along with that common usage you thereby decline to give a strong signal of non-ignorance. "Weak evidence" of ignorance, if you like.
I doubt that the common usage of "classical" preceded the naming of the historical period. In fact I suspect that the former did not become widespread until after it was already (erroneously) perceived that that sort of music was "old" and "over".