You’re missing something. People talk about celebrities and TV personalities all the time. But routinely referring to them by their given names only, when there’s a good chance that the people around you might not know whom you’re talking about? That’s creepy.
I watch Food Network and Travel Channel all the time, and I’m often talking about Anthony Bourdain or Mario Batali or Andrew Zimmern or Jamie Oliver or Nigella Lawson. But no way do I constantly refer to them as “Tony,” “Mario,” “Andrew,” “Jamie,” and “Nigella” while talking to other people. That’s obnoxious. First names are used when you’re talking about people that both the speaker and the listener have personal relationships with, not strangers and celebrities.
And yes it’s a compensatory mechanism. Her method of communicating is her way of showing that she is smart and sophisticated in this particular area. Since you fully are aware of this, I’m sure everyone else she works with is too. So you have no reason to let her insecurities make you feel insecure.
I used to work for someone who’d engage in a similar pattern of behavior. Every week, she enjoyed telling me about all the exciting things she did over the weekend. All the places she visited and all the events she attended. This wasn’t a issue by itself (even though I found this unsolicitied information boring as all get out). The thing that would get me would be how she always mentioned how “we” did this, went there, saw that etc. Her adventures always involved her and apparently some unknown, mysterious “other” person who she kept dropping into conversation without explanation.
So once I asked who she was with. Turns out she there was no other person. She was really only talking about herself; “we” was just an affectation. The funny thing is that I sensed that all along because of the way she kept emphasizing “we”. Had she truly had had some company, I doubt she would have felt the need to beat me over the head with it.
Some of the food network chefs use their first names. My mom often says “I was watching Lidia the other day” because the show is called Lidia’s Italy, rather than Lidia Bastianich’s Italy. Similarly, Martha Stewart has branded herself as just “Martha” so it wouldn’t be uncommon to say “I first saw this on Martha” or something like that.
So monstro, I agree with the general thought of the thread that this woman is not deliberately trying to bother you, and in fact Lakai may well be right that she’s just trying to be accepted among a group of people she thinks are more cultured than she is. However that doesn’t mean you’re wrong to be bothered by it. Just because she doesn’t intend to be annoying doesn’t mean she isn’t being annoying.
I learned the word ‘crudités’ from a Jonathan Coulton song earlier this month. (So I am now experiencing the so-called Baader-Meinhof Effect and was thus compelled to reply to this thread.) It was the first time I ever heard it but Jonathan Coulton’s lyrics don’t usually use a complex vocabulary so I think I can safely assume this was just a thing I happened to not know.
I don’t see why this would be the case. I don’t ever talk about food. In fact, I’d be the last person anyone would want to talk about food with. My idea of a fine meal is cheese toast and a plastic cup of Sprite. I’m not even a meat-and-potatoes girl. I’m just meat. Or potatoes. But not both at the same time.
Really, when I’m interacting with her I’m usually just the listener. As boring as that makes me sound, I usually have little to contribute to “our” conversations because she usually focuses on things that I have little interest in. Sex, food, and TV pop culture. And my interests are weird to her (she has said so before). The only reason why I tolerate her is because our jobs are very tightly connected. If there’s any tension or beef between us, it would severely impact our ability to do our jobs. Because I’m the “lead”, I would be the one who would get the flack for it. So I try avoidance when I can, and then polite sufferance the other times.
I don’t think she thinks I’m stupid. She’s in fact complimented me on my intelligence more than once, and I have done the same to her. But she has admitted to harboring an inferiority complex. That she even acknowledged this should make me feel compassion, but instead it makes me have less for some reason.
I don’t know what exactly is going on, but you’ve made me feel better.
(1) less than 25% of the population knows what a frikken “crudité” is,
and (2) over 90% of the population knows what a “vegetable tray” is,
and only a real dickhead would use a 25% word when a 90% word is available,
unless you have a legitimate reason for wanting to impress people with your
vocabulary, such as posting on internet chatrooms where the membership
is intellectually sophisticated, or thinks it is.
This is what bothered me. You agreed to do a job that you had “no idea” you’d “actually” have to do. Excuse me? Do you also not know what the word “alternate” means? You couldn’t have just said, “no, thanks. Not my thing”? Particularly since you appear to be completely unknowledgeable about anything food-related. Your colleague was trying to *help *you with a suggestion. It is not her fault you don’t know anything about food. Sounds like you’re just shifting your aggravation with yourself and your situation onto someone else.
Get over it. You agreed to do a job. Either go do it or find someone else who will.
And you’ll note I didn’t use either of them as examples. I didn’t mention Madonna either. There’s an understanding about which people are famous enough to be known by one name, or people who routinely use just one name. There are exceptions to every rule, but the fact that there are exceptions indicates that there is a general baseline. Granted, this requires some awareness about social norms. The kinds of people who do this kind of thing often have difficulty understanding or acting upon such unspoken communicative norms.
Yeah, that’s definitely her deal, too. She probably assumed that this was normal to do for all celebrities, if it was normal to do for a few of them.
I do stupid stuff like this a lot. I once spent a day referring to an IRC channel as ‘channel’ without a definite article. ‘We were talking about this in channel.’ I just thought it sounded right. In fact it sounded stupid. (Once someone got confused about what I meant I stopped.)
Note that I am not saying it is not annoying. It’s annoying.
Well, just go ahead and call me an idiot then. Since you’re so bothered.
There is a difference between volunteering to do something knowing that you have a 100% likelihood of being responsible for the duties, and volunteering to be back-up “just in case”. I was thinking that the “just in case” had a very slim chance of occurring. And that if it did occur, I’d have more than a few weeks to prepare.
I’m not in over-my-head. I have volunteered to be the representative for my floor for other things that were actually more stressful and that I was as equally clueless about. I just had more time to think about it, that’s all. Even though I’m not a cook, I know how to get people to help. That’s more than half the battle.
But thanks for trying to belittle me. You’ve actually made me feel more confident that I can handle this thing.
I know what crudité is (are?), but only because of my food-knowledgable wife, and the fact that the Food Network and Cooking Channel are in heavy household rotation. A year or so ago I wouldn’t know what it meant, and wouldn’t have felt particularly bad about not knowing, either. I might use crudité in a conversation now, but if I saw a blank look would I’d quickly follow up with “fancy-shmancy way of saying ‘vegetable tray’.”
I only know what crudité is because I worked at a fancy catering place and we would be tasked with making “vegetable crudité.” I can’t say I have ever heard the term outside of the catering place and would never think to use it amongst my sorta-educated, non-ghetto food-loving friends. I wouldn’t think that any of them would know what it meant. Even my aunt who works in a non-fancy catering business would never say crudité when she meant “vegetable tray.”
Sounds to me that it is only well-known in certain regions, as people here are suggesting that it’s common to them.
Tapas on the other hand…seriously, when I read that I thought “why are they having two Mexican food events in a row? Or is that Indian food? Oh, ‘tapas’ means appetizers…oh.”
With regards to being bothered by the way this lady speaks to you…sounds like she doesn’t necessarily like to put you down, she is just an annoying bitch. Unfortunately you’re the one getting riled up about it when you should just be laughing at the fact that she’s such an obvious troll.
My friends and I have a term for this. It’s “I climb rocks in my spare time.” One time in college we were sitting around talking about stuff we do with our free time, and this total douchebag guy said in a very strange way “I climb rocks in my spare time” like he was some sort of superman. Get over yourself, bro.
Crudité is not a common word where I’m from, and I would think someone using it was showing off. But then I don’t watch the Food Channel. Tell her if she pulls that shit again you’re going to shove her face in a ramekin.
Well, it appears that this lady knows more about food than you do. If you want her help or advice, accept that you might have something to learn. I’ve never gone to cooking school in Paris but I sure as shit know what crudités are. We always had “relish trays” to accompany family holiday dinners; some years ago, I realized that a relish trays *plus dip *was called crudité.
Your anger at the fact that somebody might know something you don’t will not do you any good. (I’m sure that you know far more than she does on many much more important subjects.) FoodTV is not especially “esoteric”–it’s on most Basic Cable systems.
I know the word crudité, but would most likely use the term vegetable tray.
In my world, a veggie tray can be picked up at the grocery store and costs about $10. A selection of crudités have to be ordered a week in advance from the fancy specialty shop or a caterer and costs about $25.
Eh. I’ve never in my life watched the food network, nor am I much interested in food at all, but crudité and ramekin are both terms I’m familiar with…so some people must use the terms pretty casually for me to have picked up on them.
Okay, so you only came about knowing the word through a late-in-life realization about what consitutes a relish tray plus dip. The very fact that you remember how and when you learned the term makes your declaration about how you “sure as shit” know what crudités are amusing. You only know it because someone happened to use it in your presence and you picked up on the connection.
The fact that you don’t normally talk about food makes it more likely that she’ll use the wrong food jargon. She probably thinks the word “crudités” is how normal people talk. Unless someone sits her down and explains to her that everyone prefers to use the term “vegetable tray,” I don’t think she’s doing to change her vocabulary.
Even though you’ve mentioned your lack of food knowledge to her in the past, she still has no way of knowing what else you don’t know. She does not think that you’re a complete idiot because you don’t know about food. At worst, she probably has a mild sense that you’re not up to date on your food terminology.
I think I can come across the same way when I talk to someone who is computer illiterate. I’ve told people to open up their “browser” when they did not know what that was. Even though I know they’re computer illiterate, I’m not going to dumb things down for them. Because I think the term “browser” is normal, and something everyone should know, I’ll keep using it so that they can learn it.
I don’t want her help especially. In case it wasn’t clear, I was brainstorming not with her, but with the other floor rep. The co-worker just happened to be within earshot of us.
I would want her help if she was a helpful type of person. Or someone who was easy to communicate with. But she is neither one of these things.
It’s not like we’re being called upon to host a five-course gourmet meal. Even I know what are good appetizer foods. You don’t have to watch the Food Network to know this. But I will summon up all the EA members on my floor for assistance with this thing. If co-worker wants to goes above and beyond and put her Food Network knowledge to the test, I’ll let her run with it. I doubt that will happen because of the well-worn “My kitchen is too small” card that she plays, but I’m not anti-coworker’s assistance.
I hate sounding so defensive, but I’m not angry that I don’t know much about food or that this particular person knows more about something than I do. I mean, that would mean that I’m angry at 99% of the people on this planet! I couldn’t care less about this particular area of ignorance, and when I care to cover some of the knowledge gap, I’m not afraid to ask questions. I just don’t like when someone continually communicates ineffectively. Note the word “continually”. If she doesn’t know that I don’t know her “foodie” language after three years of working together, then something is wrong. Either she doesn’t care that I’m constantly in a state of confusion when she talks about food, or she actually enjoys it. But I know she knows about my state because I’m always asking for clarification. It’s not a pleasant position to be in, to not only always be in the position of the listener but also the confused and couldn’t-care-less listener.
