flirtation versus pedantry
funny, true January 19th, 2009When I was younger, I used to have this unstoppable urge to correct peoples’ grammar. Thankfully, that impulse seems to have dissipated as I’ve gotten older, but I found out yesterday that it’s not entirely gone.
I walked over to FamousCoffeeCompany for a bit of the old you-know-what, and I was wearing my dark brown corduroy jacket. The barista commented on it, saying that she loved it and that it was very teacher-esque. My first thought was, “I think you mean ‘profesorial,’ ” and if this encounter had happened when I was twenty, I’m quite sure that’s what would have come flying out of my mouth. With age comes dementia wisdom, however, so I said, “Thank you.” Smile. “Yeah, it even has patches on the elbows.” I raised an arm in front of me to show her.
“Nice,” she said, smiling back. “Well, it looks great.”
I’m learning. Slowly but surely, I’m learning. Flirtation is much better than pedantry. Or should that have been ‘pedanticism’?
January 19th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Dude, I do that all the time. I’ll say something like that and wonder why people give me dirty looks, hehe.
January 20th, 2009 at 9:00 am
She was totally hitting on you! Nice. ;)
January 21st, 2009 at 11:54 am
I frequently use incorrect grammar on purpose, as a stylistic-choice. She may have been doing that, too– “teacher-like” sounds friendly and silly, whereas “profesorial” sounds more serious. I also frequently use incorrect grammar by accident and tend to dislike people who correct me, depending on how they do it. :)
January 21st, 2009 at 12:12 pm
You’re totally right, Laurie. She could’ve done it on purpose to be flirty and cute. It would’ve been insane of me to say, “Uhh, yeah, what you MEANT to say was–” It makes me laugh just to think about that as I’m writing this.
You’re not alone in not liking being corrected, either, as I found out way too late in life. :) It’s just so much better to let that kind of stuff slide. Life’s too short, et cetera.