There's this guy I work with who thinks he's more educated and knowledgeable than anyone else in the room (hint: he's not). Mainly because we work in a company where the managers all have long tenures (that's what she said!) and are rewarded with management positions for their loyalty, not for their knowledge and ability. Oh, they have great knowledge about how the company works; let's just say they don't have an education in a wide expanse of subjects. And they're not intellectually curious, to say the least.
So anyhoo, this guy doesn't know I read extensively, in many genres and subjects. But he used to be a teacher when he was younger, for about 4 years. So he still thinks of himself that way. The trouble is, he tends to lecture as if you (meaning "me") don't have any knowledge on the subject. So my nickname for him is "The World's Foremost Authority."
Which reminded me the other day to Google the REAL one: Professor Irwin Corey! I always thought he was funny when I was a kid and I saw him on The Ed Sullivan Show. But I didn't really appreciate his humor until I became an adult. He was one of the first (if not THE first) comedian to use multisyllabic words and outrageous juxtapositions of words to make a satirical point. Or just to be funny. He'd start behind a lectern, as if to lecture the audience, and continue on and on, adding more phrases of mangled syntax and meaning to an unending sentence that would eventually end up nowhere.
I looked him up on Wikipedia, wondering when he had died and at what age. I was amazed to see that he hadn't died: he was 100 years old this year! Check him out on YouTube; there are a couple videos from various shows of the 60s on there. So Happy Birthday to this centurion, Professor Irwin Corey, who has been for so long –— and continues to be –— The World's Foremost Authority!
