I often stop people mid conversation to ask what a word means and many times the person won’t actually know. They simply heard the word in context, started using it, but can’t actually define it.

The other day I opened the door to the far office and the door bumped into a toad. Toads are not inside animals. I have no idea how it got into a sealed room. It was just sitting by the door. A mystery toad. It was unharmed as far as I could tell, so I scooped it up and took it outside. It was not pleased with being scooped, but inside is not for toad. I’ve been wondering how it got in there all night. My theory is that it squeezed under the door somehow and then couldn’t figure out how to get back out. Of course that doesn’t answer how it came to be inside the house in the first place, but I guess it hopped in through the back door somehow and made its way across the entire area until it came to the far office. It’s quite the puzzle.

I backed up the entire comic archive onto a new memory card last night and it took six hours. There are now 4 complete archives. I hadn’t done a total copy in a long time. Usually I do it in little increments so it doesn’t take a long time, but this is a new card so it had to be done. It’s pretty wild that it took so long though. I guess 18 years of work takes up a lot of space.

Anyway, I don’t have anything else to report so I’ll let you go. Support links up above as always. I hope to see you back here on Friday. Until then, take a journey with excellence.

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Toads are not inside animals.

Mr. Toad was simply lost on his way to Toad Hall. Probably he was dazzled by your motorcar :).

As badger would say: “Foolish creature!”

This exchange made me happy.

Where’s Bucky O’Hare when you need him?

In another, dimension, another time and space
a parallel universe has fallen on it’s face.

When out of,the chaos,
who else could it be?

But the animal adventurers from S.-P.-A.-C.-E!

Bucky! (Captain Bucky O’Hare!)
Mutants, and aliens, and toads beware!

Still one of my favorite childhood shows.

Did you say BUCKY? Because I say BUCKY!

Mike’s conversation with Thomas here brings up something whenever I train new people at my job… legitimate questions, no matter how silly they might sound, get legitimate answers from me. I’m there to pass on knowledge to the folks coming up behind me so that I can eventually stop getting called on to put out every proverbial fire that happens there.

Yeah, I’ve got at least a year seniority over literally every single other employee where I work, multiple years over most of them, as such I am the defacto knowledge base for all of the little tidbits about how things work, what the policies are, various tips and tricks for edge cases or problems, and just general company history. I am always happy when a new employee asks a lot of questions, because it means they care about learning and doing the job well, and I am always happier after getting to help someone learn something, especially when they actually care.

Except for one new employee recently, he’ll ask a question and then interrupt you while you’re trying to answer to either attempt to (usually incorrectly) guess the answer, tell you you’re wrong (when he has no idea what he’s talking about), ask a completely different question that has nothing to do with what we were talking about, or interject something totally irrelevant. He simply does not listen while simultaneously loving the sound of his voice, yet he acts like he thinks he’s incredibly charismatic, acting like he’s close friends with everybody, bragging about how women (supposedly) can’t get enough of him, etc. If he says something to you, he will pester you until you respond, taking it as a personal challenge, he will interrupt ongoing conversations when he enters a room to talk about whatever is on his mind, and he has absolutely no sense of personal boundaries. He is the single most obnoxious human being I have dealt with in my life. And the worst part is, he puts words in other people’s mouths, he will frequently say “this manager said this” or “that manager said that” for things I know for a fact are untrue and have never been true because I know how everything works due to having been here for several years, and I know he’s making that stuff up because I’ve overheard him tell people that *I* have told him things that I never said because they aren’t true. He doesn’t listen, he actively spreads misinformation, he steals other people’s credibility, and he is just a walking tumor of a human being in general.

But so long as you actually care to learn, questions are always welcome and encouraged!

He simply does not listen while simultaneously loving the sound of his voice, yet he acts like he thinks he’s incredibly charismatic

Ugh. Been on the end of that guy. He takes up 1/3 of every phone meeting, thinks everyone needs to know complete paragraphs of what he’s thinking right then, and has no dymanic range: He’s either quiet or full volume. Plus he proves the axiom that Boring people never get hoarse.

(Edit error)

“He simply does not listen while simultaneously loving the sound of his voice, yet he acts like he thinks he’s incredibly charismatic…”

As someone that enjoys having a large vocabulary, it is shocking how uncommon it is for people to just ask what a word means when they don’t know. Like, that’s how I got such a large vocabulary in the first place, when I encounter an unfamiliar word I look it up or ask the person who said it what it means. I actively encourage this behavior in the people around me, yet I’ve encountered more people try to tell me I’m a jerk for using words they don’t know. Like, I have no idea what words you do or don’t know, I choose the best words I can come up with to communicate the idea I’m trying to express as clearly and precisely as possible, sometimes that means using obscure or large words. I guess people like that aren’t used to someone who assumes competence from those around him as a default, like, sure if someone is clearly uncomfortable with my sesquipedalianism and they haven’t gone out of their way to antagonize me over it, then I’ll use smaller words to accommodate them as much as I can, even if I feel they don’t adequately convey my message as precisely as I’d prefer, because I recognize that if someone consistently only understands half the words I say then they clearly aren’t getting the message, but I never presume someone won’t know a word before I’ve said it unless I already know that person has a significantly smaller vocabulary than I do.

Some people will hear you use a word they don’t know and feel dumb as a result, and some of those people will assume you did it on purpose for some reason or another, which is the height of idiocy, in my opinion, as I am unable to read their minds to know what words to say to make them feel stupid, and even if that was a thing I could possibly do, what in the world could possibly motivate me to do it? I use the words I feel are best suited to communicate my thoughts, I cannot control which ones you happen to be familiar or unfamiliar with, I cannot *know* which ones you happen to be familiar or unfamiliar with, if you are unfamiliar with a word I say, that is not my fault, and if that makes you feel stupid, that says a lot about you as a person and absolutely nothing about me as that is entirely outside of my control. I am always happy to correct ignorance when given the opportunity, so naturally if asked I will happily explain what a word means, to the best of my ability, and I will not think less of you for not already knowing a word (unless it’s a word I know for a fact you should already know, such as if I’ve already defined it for you multiple times or it’s directly related to a field you are supposedly knowledgeable in and not particularly obscure within that field).

So, in short, always ask, it is literally never a deliberate attempt to make you feel stupid.

It’s one thing to use superlatives in conversation with another individual who may or may not know the meaning or context, but it becomes another thing entirely when you convey your enjoyment of the superlative to a public lecture or even a tell-all book where you EXPECT the audience to understand right off the bat. At this point, it would be proper to exercise more common terminology then provide the superlative equivalent to provide your audience with the sense of understanding regardless of whether you think they are aware or not. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing your audience.

I’m not sure you’re using the word superlative correctly, I’ve never heard it used to refer to a large or uncommon word, and googling the definition I don’t see anything to suggest that usage either.

I also don’t see what this has anything to do with my comment, I’m not a public speaker and I haven’t written any books (and if I did they wouldn’t be tell all books). Obviously I was referring to use in conversation, whether spoken conversation in person or text-based conversation via the internet.

At work or in social situations I will nod along and then look up the meaning of a word later. I work in tech so a lot of words are arcane tech things.

And I think I’m not alone in the internet age in doing this. Another internet thing: I’ll know the meaning and use of a word but not know how to pronounce it because I’ve only seen it in text form. Or Americans (like me) will pronounce it different than Anglo-English speakers.

I don’t think not knowing pronunciation is an internet thing; I did that alot as a kid, before the internet was very common and I was never on it, just from reading books.

Same here. I grew up long before the internet existed, but I read lots of books. I remember how embarrassed I was at finding out that “awry” was pronounced “a-wry” and not “aw-ree”. (Don’t remember what the heck I was reading to come across that word, though.)

I can’t help but wonder if it’s really wise for the both of them to be working with Mike in this capacity! He is there boss at the end of the day, and if he develops some real spine, especially where regulations are concerned, and then finds out about them…….

He’s too nice for that. And even if he tried, what then–he drives out two of his most essential employees over a stupid rule corporate would never find out about anyway?

It wouldn’t matter. Nepotism has already worked its way into the workplace. Plus, as BWM said, Mike is too nice.

2709 Fire Of Learning.

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