You ever use a word in conversation and wonder what it means, according to the dictionary, or its origins? I do. One such word is the witty. What constitutes wit, and how do you know its witty?
I found this online - "Being witty is a good way to use your intelligence and knowledge to amuse people. It can also be an impressive flirting tool! But be warned, if the person you're having a conversation with isn't grasping your wittiness, you might come off as a snob, or just plain weird."
OK, I'll admit it...the part that says "...you might come off as a snob, or just plain weird.." hit home.
Most of the people I work with have never referred to me as a snob, but they do believe I am weird. Mostly because I tend to be what I call honest and they call " blunt, earnest, frank, " or other terms..
The two i work the most with told me after I had worked with them for a few months that they thought I was presumptuous, in that I rebuffed their offers to teach me everything they do, so i would understand it. My approach was to observe and question what they were doing, and develop my own thoughts on how things might be done, since I was hired to improve operations, hence I was going to re-engineer things a bit.
The bluntness comes from what others have called my confrontational nature, which makes me laugh. I am not confrontational, but I don't back away from something because someone else disagrees.
Back to wit- I don't think i have any.
Aristotle said "Wit is educated insolence"
If that's the case, maybe I have wit. I am educated, and my father used to say I was insolent...hmmmmm
I always get in trouble for making allusions to things people don't get. I sometimes feel like a cultural anachronism. I grew up in a time when Western culture was valued a lot more than it is today.
ReplyDeleteWit is the salt of conversation, not the food - William Hazlett
ReplyDeleteI love to use plays on words, but its a real wet blanket when people just don't have a clue when you'd done so.
ReplyDeleteWit is a good thing. The problem today is that sometimes references are to things that people don't know about. The more you hve studied and experienced, the more material you have to draw from. I get some funny looks when I refer to obscure parallel events or facts.
ReplyDeleteI actually made a crack about the Wife of Bath to an English professor and she didn't get it.
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