Trying to be smart, being an idiot and getting away with it

[somavision]

So there I was, beside my girfriend in front of the T.V. and primed to take advantage of the opportunity to flash my intellectual peacock feathers.
"This is actually a very good example of metanarrative," I said.
I get a look back that tells me that the word metanarrative impressed, though the statement as a whole seemed to invoke little if any interest. I didn't elaborate further and we continued watching the film, interspersed with everyday general chit chat. Today I realised I didn't mean metanarrative at all.

[Suz]

So there I was, beside my girfriend in front of the T.V. and primed to take advantage of the opportunity to flash my intellectual peacock feathers.
"This is actually a very good example of metanarrative," I said.
I get a look back that tells me that the word metanarrative impressed, though the statement as a whole seemed to invoke little if any interest. I didn't elaborate further and we continued watching the film, interspersed with everyday general chit chat. Today I realised I didn't mean metanarrative at all.

OMG, i do such things all the time. And then I obsess over having been wrong and told the person the wrong thing, like I committed the biggest disservice ever. I just did that the other day. . .every time i start feeling guilty about it though, my mantra is, that person probably wouldn't have even cared. Still doesn't make me feel much better.


lol "intellectual peacock feathers"!

[krieger]

It gets fun when the other person starts using the word the way you did. In the case of multiple listeners you start building up your personal little intellect worshipping cult. Kinda like socionics.

[consentingadult]

We have a famous anecdote in the Netherlands, from a writer who passed away some 20 years ago. In his youth while being a junior office clerk, we was sent out to retrieve a document, but couldn't get it as it still needed to be 'epibrated'. Being smart as he was, he asked: "what's 'epibrate' ?" He apprently was the first one who dared to ask what the word meant. Nothing at all, of course.

To epibrate, always good to check how assertive someone is

[Lobo]

Why were you trying to be smart soma? You should know better...

[Creepy-Cyclops]

lol, yeah, no offence, but, pretentious.

And yeah, it kinda reminds me of my work just now, there's a lot of jargon flying around and I bet half the people there have no idea what it means.

It's also a bit like computer speak, it's like unless you know some flash new-fangled word for something then it's like an intellectual failure - only knowing the silly phrases give apparent intellectual credence.

Sometimes I talk in the most obvious terms possible, just to see the alleged know it alls squirm, but then, i'm weird, or maybe it's just a case of a spade is a spade unless it's a shovel.

Anyway, on the subject of not knowing stuff but not wanting to give it away, there's the old chestnuts that tradesmen do to new starts:

send them for:

A long stand (hehehe)

A set of sky hooks


etc.

[somavision]

Why were you trying to be smart soma? You should know better...

You know Te Ha and knowledge is power and trying to learn big words, so that I can use them to speak to people and they go "wow he use big words" and stuff. And yes I should know better.

@WorkaholicsAnon - I'm glad I'm not the only one here who does this.

@Cyclops - To be fair if I had said "metafiction" instaed of "metanarrative" it would have been both correct and relevant. Someone tried the skyhook thing on me and I nearly fell for it, ironically perhaps it turned out that some of the guys climb. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_(climbing))
And I pride myself on my pretentiousness.

@ Labcoat - yes like some kind of pseudo-intellectual mime.

@consentingadult - very good anecdote.

[Lobo]

You know Te Ha and knowledge is power and trying to learn big words, so that I can use them to speak to people and they go "wow he use big words" and stuff. And yes I should know better.

I do have sort of a dry humor, hope you caught that, hehe.

[somavision]

it was like reading the sahara.

[Creepy-Cyclops]

lol, I like trying the line of "i'm an airline pilot" or something.

[Lobo]

it was like reading the sahara.

lol, I was relying on the evil smiley.