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We just might have a problem... that you'll understand...

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Last time, promise. Pause and review, and we won't make you go through this again.

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The speaker's diction in this passage serves to characterize him as which of the following?

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And here are the potential answers...

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It's judgment call time again. This question wants us to read the passage as a whole, and slap a big fat label on its speaker.

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Warning: while it's perfectly fine to do so within the confines of a test question,

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please avoid slapping labels on people in real life.

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Okay, so is our speaker...

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...uneducated and considerate? Uneducated? Hardly. You don't pick up words like "appellation,"

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"infallible" and "libertine" while playing in the sandbox.

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Is he egotistical and thoughtless? When someone's egotistical they are preoccupied with their

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ego... in other words, they couldn't give two hoots about anyone else.

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Since our speaker is so concerned about struldbrugs and making sure they get the advantages and

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recognition they deserve... we can rule this one out.

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Is our speaker educated and impulsive? Well... yeah. We've already established he's educated,

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so we know that much is true...

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...and we know he's impulsive, because he admits to speaking "too extravagantly"...

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so C is looking like a sure thing... Just to cover all our bases though, let's

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check out D and E...

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Is our speaker aristocratic and egotistical? We already ruled out egotistical, so... pass...

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What about curious and slow to speak? Curious, maybe... but definitely not slow to speak.

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This guy could give an auctioneer a run for his money.

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So C it is.

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Now remember not to put labels on people. It's such a pain to get that sticky stuff

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off of clothing.

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