Friday, July 15, 2011

Who needs to read? I've got Google.

I'll admit it.  I'm a snob.  Not about stuff to have. But I am a snob about stuff to know.  I look down my nose at bad grammar and careless use of homonyms that spell-check can't detect as errors.  I get annoyed with others' poor use of apostrophes and sad neglect of semi-colons. I went to a regular old high school with some seriously demanding English teachers.  I remember having a grammar text book in addition to the literature book in 10th grade that we were expected to work through pretty much on our own. All the exercises in the book had to be submitted by the end of the year, but I don't recall a single lesson out of that book. Were were too busy studying Greek Dramas. That was an interesting year.  That teacher was the drama coach who is responsible for this get up:




It's a production of Medea by Euripides. Don't you recognize it? Good stuff all around.  I'm not telling you which one is me.
But I digress.
I was talking with a guy yesterday who has in the past told me how he prides himself on not talking smack, and keeps his trap shut if he's not informed on the topic of any given conversation.  This I believe.  What I thought was interesting is the fact that he wanted to fact-check me on a reference I made. He clearly doesn't give me the same benefit of the doubt.  I referenced Pygmalion while we were talking about a company he's considering going to work for.  I have worked for that company, and I said they like to start people at the bottom and promote them throughout the course of their education. They have a kind of Pygmalion thing going.  He asked me what that meant, and when I told him, he still whipped out his iPhone to Google it.

Am I in a habit of making stuff up?  Do I routinely mislead you?  Don't I specifically admit cluelessness when cluelessness is present?  No, no, by all means, verify my information.  Thanks to the unacknowledged wisdom of Diane Brenninger, I have these pointless references at my fingertips. Hit me up anytime for something else about which you won't believe me.

I'll be here all month.

1 comment:

  1. Grr. People do that to me too, and I have made it clear that I won't say something unless I know what I am talking about, or, if I am being silly and am unsure, I will gladly say so... I often win money and lunches from my mom for asserting something and having her not believe me, and so turning it into a bet to teach her that I never just make shit up.

    And I am fairly certain you are the one in the center with the black and white makeup.

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