Letter 172 - Mr. Manners

Having spent much of my life around high IQ individual of various sorts,

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I’ve perforce observed many of the no-cost options that are included in the package:

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And lack of social graces seems to be something that’s often missing in action. This was brought home recently when reading a colleague’s posting about his interaction with the well known “shmart guy” - Neil deGrasse Tyson.

It started with Tyson forestalling a colleague’s getting ready to go on stage with an impromptu and unrequested lesson in thermodynamics. A short discussion of perceived temperature when shaking hands with someone and made concrete by forcing a hand-shaking moment.

Now on the one hand, I totally get the sudden urge to “teach something neat”. The world’s full of nifty teachable moments and certainly the perception of temperature is one of them. However - time and place. Not to mention opening with “Hey, there’s a nice way to demonstrate how people perceive temperature. Would you like me to show you?” is pretty much 100% better than “Both of you - give me your hands - it’s time to experience first hand thermodynamics!”

But there was more, and this is what REALLY irritated me. My buddy noted lots of scribbling on the margins of a book being proffered to Tyson for signage and commented, in an admiring way, “A good book should have marginalia.”

GREAT sentiment. He was showing an appreciation for the depth of study that had clearly taken place. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, Tyson saying this could: “Marginalia?” Why did… that word? What kind of—what’d you get on your... Is it Australian? Marginalia?”

And what followed was a short interlude on “Using ‘big’ words is dumb.” Essentially.

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Reallllly?

Apparently the use of a word that’s the most appropriate word possible for ‘notes in the margin’, one that’s been used in writing for basically forever, is a baaaaad thing to be used when speaking. I guess it’s ‘the M word’ to him.

Of course SOMETIMES talkin’ fancy can be an issue:

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But this wasn’t one of those times.

Why exactly did this stick in my craw*? Because I’ve known for a terribly long time that the best way to puncture the enthusiasm of kids (and grownups as well) is to make them feel that what they’re doing is embarrassing or stupid. If the first time Timmy raises his hand in class the teacher says “And what idiotic thought do you have to offer Timmy?” do you think Timmy will be quick to raise his hand in the future?

Closing down active inquiry for no good reason? That’s a sin, my friends.

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So what’s the deal? The whole shtick of Tyson’s career is that he’s supposedly excited about teachin’ and learnin’. And yet he does THIS when off camera? Was he embarrassed that he didn’t know what marginalia meant? I hope that wasn’t it. Is he suddenly the talkie police who enforces a 4th grade vocabulary on people he’s with? Wow, that’d be weird.