Am I asking too much by using the word “succinct” in a report discussed at a meeting and expecting colleagues to know what it bloody means or be able to pronounce it
I don’t think so, thing that really bugged me is that clear as it was they didn’t understand they didn’t ask, I ALWAYS ask if I don’t understand the meaning of a word, it’s how you learn new ones. I mean why do people seem content to be ignorant?
Years ago at work when we had the first ever computer installed (you may recall the ones that used to make a loud screeching sound as the printer block thingy jig whizzed across the perforated paper (fitted to little black bumps either side) and the pages folded over each other like an accordion, as many people who came back from a boozy lunchtime in fact demonstrated and it sat on a table with a hole in it and a box underneath to catch the paper.)
A senior manager came in and asked me in a very condescending manner (I was still a cherubic teen) what I thought of it. I replied “It brings the Luddite out in me” “Oh” he replied as though amazed I knew this “Where did you learn about the Luddites Jim, I thought you went to school in Ravensthorpe”.
I was still learning how to be icily polite and sarcastic in those days so replied with as much contempt as I could muster “They’re called Libraries and they let us poor folk in for free to read those papery things filled with words if we’ve washed”.
Don’t know why that popped into my head, but it did, please note the above story is 100% true apart from the names I’ve withheld, the bits I left out to improve the flow of the narrative and any comic exaggeration or invention (which grow as the number of years from the actual event increase).
by Jim Aborwhear
