What's a cool-sounding alternative to "expert"?
Looking for a suitable, non-pretentious-sounding noun that means something like:
"Knows a lot about this topic (far beyond any intermediate knowledge and definitely enough to help a lot of people), but is still actively learning and doesn't consider themselves (or want to be described as) an expert, as that has a lot of connotations and professional links that they don't have."
Our melty mind is only suggesting kennings to us right now, like "[thing]-knower" or "thing-understander".
SleepyCatten
Unknown parent • • •@trabex Alas, definitely not a professional, and that would confer qualifications, sanctioned experience, and a level of officialdom that we don't have 😅 Same goes for specialist, sadly.
Master and wizard would sadly trigger our gender dysphoria, where they're both gendered male 🥺 (Also alas wizard is a tainted word for us, due to Harry Potter and the ongoing bigotry of JK Rowling.)
We do very much appreciate the idea behind those thoughts though
SleepyCatten
Unknown parent • • •@trabex No apologies necessary whatsoever 🩷 There was no malice behind your answers, only kindness, and that is always the most-important thing.
To answer your question, kind-of. We're looking for something that's technically below expert, as that's a formal grade and has requirements.
Boghana has suggested "proficient in X", which is the closest match for what we're looking for right now. We haven't found another way to describe it.