So, you’re in a conversation with someone who’s clearly not noticing the confused look on your face. This person has gone off on a long-road tangent and is using words and acronyms that you’ve never heard before. What do you do?
Here are my suggestions (besides, you know, the obvious blank stare or “could you explain that?” responses):
1) The Brush-Off
Variations:
- “Nah, I’m not really a Star Wars geek.”
- “Sorry, I don’t speak Swedish.”
2) The Signal
Some friends and I have been trying to introduce the convention of throwing “star trek fingers” as a non-verbal signal that you need a definition. It’s less interruptive and more respectful. It just happens to be lacking a bit in widespread adoption, but I figure we can get past that… Try it sometime!
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December 8th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Damn, I need to get an animation override for spock hands so I can throw them at inworld staff meetings.
December 8th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
YES!
December 8th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
i definitely like Mr’s Spock Vulcan hand-sign, good suggestion, i’ll try that next time :)
December 8th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Hehe — let me know how it goes!
December 10th, 2007 at 4:41 am
ah like this idea.
but can’t help thinkin you have some sort of ulterior motives behind yer suggestion….like we’re part of some experiment.
December 10th, 2007 at 4:59 am
OMG…that rocks. I need to start throwin down the Vulcan sign during family gatherings everytime QVC is mentioned by my mother.
December 10th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Severe, you are absolutely part of some experiment. I hope you’re okay with this. It’s been going on for awhile now.
Katz, that will be AWESOME.
December 10th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
ah hope tha intended result of this experiment is NAWT tha have me homeless on tha streets of el cerrito…altho that mite confirm some suspicions of mine.
December 10th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
hilarious – I would say the same thing for acronyms gone amok –
December 11th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Severe — uh oh… you’ve tapped into my demonic plans to destroy you…. crap. now they’re derailed. nice going…
LTrank — yes, absolutely works for acronyms, too. I recently ran into a situation where someone used an acronym and i found out halfway through the conversation that it meant something completely different in that context than what I thought it meant… oops…