Verbosity

[The Pandector]

I stay away from lawyers. I will certainly be jailed for contempt when some DA demands, ‘just a yes or no answer to the question.’

 

[The Pandector]

There. How’d I do?

 

[Ken]

I have made that exact statement to a friend of mine who is on the spectrum. His response was that he if he wasn't interested it's useless.

ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!

Like Susan, I've been told I know a lot of useless knowledge. And I agree, Ken, I hate the phrase. Better to know too much than too little. And the imagination can find parallels and deeper meaning in all kinds of things. Just because it doesn't relate directly to work, or won't save your life, doesn't make knowledge useless.

I can't say, in my experience, this phrase was ever used by people who read widely or were very open-minded. Though they may have had nice educations.

When I was a kid in school, I remember other kids and parents complaining about schools teaching "useless" information. Even then I thought, how can anyone possibly know that information was useless?? None of them had finished their lives yet. There are zillions of zillions of variables throughout life and inevitably, something will come up where that "useless" information would be helpful or perhaps even get you out of a real bind. If you are still alive at all; you are not yet done with all the variables to come.

School was a nightmare for me. I did not do well, but at least I knew that all information was useful - even if I was not interested at the time.

 

[Outdated]

Useless knowledge???!!

The lady that taught me my trade told me that if you can't learn two new things every day then your life is wasted.

She said it doesn't matter how small a thing you learn, even if it's only watching ants dismember a wasp, there is no such thing as useless knowledge.

 

[MROSS]

Anybody remember the NBC TV Series 'Cheers?' The character 'Cliff Claven' the mail-carrier was quite verbose.

 

[kazmen17]

My psychiatrist keeps sending me the session notes for some reason, including notes I personally don't think I need but they always say I seem to have an average vocabulary but it's like 1) I'm just trying to communicate as effectively as possible and 2) we're not talking about any of my favorite subjects. Same with my diagnosis evaluation. What would be the point of talking over your head? Just because someone isn't using big words like astronomical, gigantic, or antidisestablishmentarianism doesn't mean they can't or don't. It's just not relevant to casual conversation.