Yeah blind taste tests will almost certainly shut these idiots up.
I often run into Trader Joe’s and ask their Wine Person “I’m on my way to play poker with wine snobs. What do you have under ten bucks that tastes like twenty bucks?” One time, she said “How about a $5 that tastes like $50?”
Well, one of the most vocal enophiles at the game went on and on about what side of what hill it must’ve been grown on… so I mentioned Trader Joe’s, and he was perplexed. Later, he admitted he loved it.
Then I got an email the next day:
The wife and I popped in to the store and asked for a case of that Grifone you brought to the poker game. When they rang it up, I learned how much you value your poker buddies. :•)
Pretension hit new heights with the sale of a fabulously expensive bottle of scotch.
"And what is a $2.7 million whisky like? Macallan’s Master Whisky Maker Kirsteen Campbell, who gave the tipple a sniff during the reconditioning, said it contained notes of “rich dark fruits, black cherry compote alongside sticky dates, followed by intense sweet antique oak.”
“Dark chocolate, treacle, ginger … the notes go on and on,” she said."
And that’s just from the odor.
Get a hundred scotch fanciers in a room for a blind sniff-and-taste test and compare notes on their “notes” - it’d be hilarious.
“But I digress”. Always sounds phony and pretentious, no matter who says it.
I know, it’s 12 years ago…
but I thought I was the only one! And I hate SIR Neville Mariner by association!
On the other hand, not long ago I found myself being savaged-- savaged., I tell you!.. for decrying the breakdown of what used to be considered the standard grammar of educated people in contemporary public discourse.
So it depends.
On what, I don’t exactly know.
[levant sa main]… Moi! Moi…
When I was a kid and we had our garage converted into a bonus room, the contractor installed the late Edward G. Robinson’s wall heater. It was such a characteristically generous and selfless gesture that Robinson should have sent us this, of all his many wall heaters, and that despite having recently shed life’s mortal coil…
So do I win a bun or what?
What’s the difference between pretentious and tacky?
I fully admit to being a film nerd, and while I’ve got a shelf full of Criterions and can monologue about Wim Wenders at the drop of a hat, I also love horror movies from the classiest to the trashiest schlock. But snooty film folk piss me off. I worked at a video store for two years a long time ago (back when they existed, I guess). It wasn’t a chain like Blockbuster or Jumbo, it was a hip indie place with a huge back catalog of stuff from off the beaten path. While some of our customers were great, we had a bunch that honestly just seemed to be renting to bolster their snobbish cred. I took a special loathing to the ones who’d come in looking for Tony Gatlif movies and rolling their r’s when they asked for Latcho Drom.
Worse were the CBC fans. The Canadian Broadcasting Channel, being the national broadcaster, strives for “cultcha” in its cultural news items. Whenever someone would sidle up to the counter, look down their nose and say “I was listening to the CBC today, and they were talking about…” I knew they were going to be annoying. Even when the station had been talking about something more to the liking of the hoi polloi, their fans weren’t nearly as intellectually rigorous as they thought they were. I remember in 2021 being asked “Do you have that new Spider-Man movie?” “You mean the one they’re currently filming?” “Oh. I guess that means no?” And then the headdesking would commence.
Pronouncing the word chocolate any other way than “chawklit”.
Pronouncing the word comfortable using any more than 3 syllables.
Is “chock-let” (rhymes with pocket, sort of) okay?
I’ve never heard of her; don’t know if that makes me pretentious, or just clueless. I’m in Boston, so that probably makes it worse either way.
Scarecrow Video?
No, it was local to Toronto.
Yeah…I guess. 
Com-fort-a-ble is how you feel driving with the top down and the wind in your hair.
Oh, sorry, that’s convertible.
Or indecent exposure.
It’s pretentious to park your double-wide in a trailer park full of single-wides, especially if you wear a mullet or Daisy Dukes.
Or both.
Ah, you’ve met my uncle Fred!
I once lived next door to Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. There’s an artificial lake there, with several islands, each with its own mausoleum for an otherwise forgotten robber baron and each of the offspring. Why should I look upon his works and despair? I found it hilarious, not disparaging.