- By Jim Evans
- Entertainment
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Smart Talk SMART TALK By Dr. Verbos Metikulos
PRONE: At the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, my colleague Dr. Clark Chousie collects what he likes to call delicious distinctions. He’s something of a mandarin about precise usage, but I enjoy the language debates he sets off in the Fowler Lounge.
For instance, a potential victim of Dr. Chousie may think prone describes any horizontal position. Wrong. He would say, with one raised eyebrow, dead wrong. Prone is lying face down; supine, lying face up. Someone else may learn that contiguous means connected at the sides; conterminous, connected at the ends. The good doctor derives delight from this. Everybody needs a hobby.
People get caught most often saying something like, “You have two choices, A or B.” Dr. Metikulos calmly, and maddeningly, replies, “No, I have one choice. You gave me two options.” A choice is an act of choosing from options, he explains. If you have two choices, you will choose two from among three or more options.
Though he makes these corrections completely without malice, those corrected are prone to avoid the poor man thereafter.
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