I guess I’ve got to be the one to say it.
“Pretentious? Moi?”
alt.postmodern, from the time of its creation to when Usenet fell out of vogue some years back.
At someone who was sending a subtle signal that it was OK to come over, and might have been oral fixative too? You don’t get out at ALL much.
Lastyear at a party, I and others had to get educated about different types of wine, by my BIL. His “knowledge” obviously was acquired online or in some other print form, because he mispronounced even the most common types. After being corrected on the pronunciation of “Merlot”, he basicly implied that to pronounce it that way (the proper way), was only if you wanted to sound pretensious.
I wish I had thought of that. I won’t even try to reproduce how I pronounced Pouilly Fuisse the first time I ordered it.
British satirical magazine Private Eye celebrates pretension in the media on a regular basis via its Pseuds Corner feature. This week we have:
Holy shit.
Bookmark that link and check back regularly for more wank.
James Ellroy (in a promo for a TV special) announcing that he is the greatest crime writer ever.
He was probably too thick to pick on the “let’s get this ass out of our office so we can get back to working with real authors before our boss yells at us” vibe.
Was this the Tom Cruise school of acting?
I was at some English department meeting. I’d heard that one of the other instructors had recently gotten a book published, so I went to congratulate her.
I swear she raised her nose up when she said it.
And she didn’t give memoir the Anglicized pronunciation generally accepted in the US, “mem-wahr,” either. Oh no. It was a “mem-WAA.” She wrote a mem-WAA.
One part of my job when working for a franchise was to conduct the new franchisee 5 day training classes. I covered all the things they needed to know about the franchise system they had just paid $60,000 for. One first morning session was going very well. Ten of the people were very interested, asking great questions, taking lots of notes. I felt they would do well. One guy, after my brief introduction about what we would be covering, the specifically this franchise’s system, pulled out his copy of the Wall Street Journal and noisily opened it and started to read. While I was speaking he made a big production of turning the pages, making sure everyone in the room knew he was not paying any attention to the class.
I had never had anyone in my class to blatantly rude. I figured I would continue on until the break, then think of some way to deal with him. At the break he approached me and in a loud voice so everyone could hear, said, “You are probably wondering why I am not listening to you. You see, I have a BA in business, so I feel confident that I know more than you do about running a business. Nothing personal, but I feel it is important I always make the best use of my time, and reading the Wall Street Journal is more productive for me than listening to things I already know.”
I was stunned. I could not believe anyone could be so arrogant. Had he read my bio that was included in the class materials, he would have seen I also had a BA in business, which really had little to do with this class. I was selected to teach the class because I had 12 years experience working for the franchise running very successful stores so I most definitely knew more than he did about running this particular franchise.
The other class members got upset with him, and they followed me when I stepped outside the room and told me they felt the guy was a jerk and that they were learning a lot, and thought I was covering the information very well etc. I could tell that they wanted me to stand up for myself and tell the guy off, but I was really not comfortable doing that. I told everything would be fine, I would make sure he didn’t cause any more disruptions or interfere with teaching the class.
I thanked them for their support and told them we were about to start again. As I opened the door, we saw the guy pick up the phone on the desk and start talking, loudly of course, “Go ahead and sell 100,000 shares. I made over $600,000 on that stock; I can take some of the profit and buy 20,000 shares of IBM.” Then he pretended to be startled that we had all walked back in and heard him on the phone. He hangs up and tells me not to worry, he used his calling card to make the call to his broker in New York, so there won’t be any long distance charges on my phone.
I smiled sweetly at him and said, “Oh, I am not worried about any long distance phone calls being billed to that phone. You see, I would never want the phone to ring and interrupt class, so I always unplug the phone from the wall before class starts,” and I pointed to the floor where the unplugged line was laying near the phone jack. The other class members all looked over to see the phone really was unplugged and just busted up laughing at Mr. Jerky Guy. Mr. Jerky Guy left the class at lunch time and did not return. The next day his very apologetic brother-in-law, who was his partner, took his place and assured me Mr. Jerky Guy would not have anything to do with running the franchise.
I love Karma.
And this might fit with some of the other examples. This is the mission statement of a company I found online today when I was looking for some other information:
"Our Mission:
To leverage the spirit of our ownership culture to enhance and enrich the lives of all who are touched by our businesses, by delivering a diversified portfolio of products and services unmatched in quality and value through a team of professional, responsive and dedicated employees.”
To leverage the spirit of our ownership culture???
Any guesses as to what this company does?
They make waching machines.
Sounds like the CEO found him/herself an Earth mistress, or Og-smash, they paid a ‘consultant’ to come up with that crap, or Og-smash-smash, the consultant is the Earth mistress. (Not to say a guy couldn’t have come up with that either, but it just doesnt give off that ‘spirit’.)
I loathe smoking more than I would have seen the signals.
Sunspace: How old are you? I swear in the 60’s to mid-70’s everybody smoked but me. There was a student smoking lounge in my high school to keep kids from smoking in the restrooms. In grade school and in high school there was always a teacher smoking lounge.
I used to carry a pack of cig’s in high school just to give away to others to “fit in” even though I didn’t smoke myself. Kool’s menthol BTW. 
Very popular in the late 60’s early 70’s. Damn I’m old.
Check out the old NASA vids for smoking Engineers. Or watch old clips from Twilight Zone, Johnny Carson, or Laugh-in, everyone smoked.
That is absolutely perfect!
I’m glad that jackelope mentioned English departments upthread. When it comes to pretension, many English departments achieve critical mass. Just ask a typical English prof, “What are you working on?” and jump aside so that the torrent of pretension that spews forth doesn’t hit you.
My favorites are those who insist that everyone call them “Doctor.” Newsflash, doc: virtually everyone in your department has a Ph.D., so you’re not doing much to distinguish yourself.
Was he so clueless that he didn’t realize there was no dial tone? :dubious:
This I have no problem with. Just about everyone in their department has one, sure. But how many non-academics have one (not nearly as many). It’s a grueling program in most cases and I figure that if they can tough it out, they’ve earned that Doctor title.
This is my contribution to the OP. :rolleyes:
Carlyjay, I think I know what the TA got.
The TA got to find out the relative IQs of the people in the class.