Excuse me, what? You must be confusing me with someone else.

“Isn’t that a little severe for David’s supposed error?”

Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition defines “error” as, among other things, “an act involving an unintentional deviation from truth or accuracy.” By that definition, I don’t believe David’s statement was an error – as the pattern of his comments lately shows, his deviation from a truthful and accurate representation of concerns about sexism is entirely intentional.

@jim: Perhaps I should explain. When people like AnnJo project “offense” onto those who say things they disagree with, it’s a way of derailing the conversation – making it all about me and my delicate feelings, not about David’s statement. “I’m not offended; I’m contemptuous” is in response to that.

You and I both have a tendency to serve as grammar police – telling people when they have made a grammatical error. I have never let on whether my feelings for such people include contempt (they don’t), and I may be mistaken, but I don’t think you have either. Your service as one of the thought police is similar – you are telling people when they have traduced one of the current tribalist fads. Fine, but that such error should force you to disclose your contempt for the errant suggests you are taking the duties of the job to an extreme. Here’s the Bing definition of contempt: “attitude of utter disgust or hatred: a powerful feeling of dislike toward somebody or something considered to be worthless, inferior, or undeserving of respect.” Isn’t that a little severe for David’s supposed error?

Recently, one of my coworkers said she thought one of her tires was low. I mentioned checking the air pressure with the tire gauge, and she replied “what’s that?” I explained the procedure, starting with taking the cap off the valve stem, and she countered with “what’s a valve stem?” Sadly she had never asked about these things because her father and husband always took care of it.

Assume you have a vehicle that gets (with full air) 20 mpg for city and highway combined. Lets say you just repumped the air in the tires, but if you let them go, you will fall to 19.6 mpg (a 2% loss) in three months, and the air pressure (and mpg) changes linearly with time during those 3 months. Lets say you drove 3000 miles in 3 months, which averaged 19.8 mpg (started better, ended worse). Lets say gas cost $3.30 a gallon. You purchased 3000/19.8 = 151.5152 gallons of gas at a cost of 151.5152 * $3.30 = $500. Alternatively, lets say you kept the air up by putting air in it 6 times over the 3 months (i.e., bi-weekly). Now you purchased 3000/20 = 150 gallons, at a cost of 150*$3.30 = $495. So you saved $5 in gas over the three months by keeping your tires pumped… but you spent an extra $6 on using the air pump, so you came out $1 in the hole!

Of course 125*4 is 500. Dunno what I was thinking. Where’s my brain at?! Will never again comment late at night when there’s math involved.