I am always very careful with my words when speaking to children, because there are certain things that I believe stay with them their whole lives.
When I was small, I used to spend a lot of time at the house of the little girls next door. Their father, if I recall, was a musician who worked from a sound studio in the basement, but he may have also been a teacher. And I noticed that he was always very cold and rude to his daughters. He would say to them, "You don't understand because you're little, and your brain is the size of a little peanut that will grow when you do."
One day, he was talking about a body that had been found in a river. I asked if it was dead, and he said "When it's a body, it's implied that it's dead, but I don't expect you to know that because (insert brain-is-a-peanut remark)." I was probably five or six but even then I knew he was just trying to make me feel stupid.
In adult life I've encountered people who have that same pretentious, assuming air, and I always associate them with him. It's exhausting to combat them and there's no winning. I will always fail if I try. It's a personality type, from what I can see, not a case of which party is more educated. I know plenty of educated people who don't carry on that way.
Yesterday, I met a girl on another forum and we got to talking about literature. After calling my genre pretentious, she offered to read my MS and critique it and all but shoved her unfinished MS at me. I tried to tactfully decline because a) if you think my genre is pretentious, I don't want to hear what you have to say about my writing, and b), I've had three editors from major publishing houses give me revision notes, so whose opinion does this girl think I'm gonna follow? And I declined reading her MS by politely saying I wouldn't be of much use since it didn't sound like a genre that I read. She countered by saying it was a genre that would appeal to all readers. How that's even possible is beyond me. I tried to suggest AW for a beta reader, and she said she's visited this site and found it stuffy and rigid. Yet she called the forum on which I met her too chaotic and full of idiots.
Well, I have this inability to say no, so I said I'd try to read her MS, but I don't want to and doubt I will... Something tells me she'd disregard my opinion anyway.
Finally, after an hour of this, I said I wasn't feeling well (I really do have the flu) and had to go to bed. She told me that vitamin C causes liver damage (I know at least one AWer whose boyfriend would have a field day with that) and that NyQuil (my love) is no good now that they've changed the formula. All this in the last minute of our conversation.
Gah! When people get like this, all I ever hear is "blah blah blah, you have a peanut brain."
This ever happen to you?
When I was small, I used to spend a lot of time at the house of the little girls next door. Their father, if I recall, was a musician who worked from a sound studio in the basement, but he may have also been a teacher. And I noticed that he was always very cold and rude to his daughters. He would say to them, "You don't understand because you're little, and your brain is the size of a little peanut that will grow when you do."
One day, he was talking about a body that had been found in a river. I asked if it was dead, and he said "When it's a body, it's implied that it's dead, but I don't expect you to know that because (insert brain-is-a-peanut remark)." I was probably five or six but even then I knew he was just trying to make me feel stupid.
In adult life I've encountered people who have that same pretentious, assuming air, and I always associate them with him. It's exhausting to combat them and there's no winning. I will always fail if I try. It's a personality type, from what I can see, not a case of which party is more educated. I know plenty of educated people who don't carry on that way.
Yesterday, I met a girl on another forum and we got to talking about literature. After calling my genre pretentious, she offered to read my MS and critique it and all but shoved her unfinished MS at me. I tried to tactfully decline because a) if you think my genre is pretentious, I don't want to hear what you have to say about my writing, and b), I've had three editors from major publishing houses give me revision notes, so whose opinion does this girl think I'm gonna follow? And I declined reading her MS by politely saying I wouldn't be of much use since it didn't sound like a genre that I read. She countered by saying it was a genre that would appeal to all readers. How that's even possible is beyond me. I tried to suggest AW for a beta reader, and she said she's visited this site and found it stuffy and rigid. Yet she called the forum on which I met her too chaotic and full of idiots.
Well, I have this inability to say no, so I said I'd try to read her MS, but I don't want to and doubt I will... Something tells me she'd disregard my opinion anyway.
Finally, after an hour of this, I said I wasn't feeling well (I really do have the flu) and had to go to bed. She told me that vitamin C causes liver damage (I know at least one AWer whose boyfriend would have a field day with that) and that NyQuil (my love) is no good now that they've changed the formula. All this in the last minute of our conversation.
Gah! When people get like this, all I ever hear is "blah blah blah, you have a peanut brain."
This ever happen to you?
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