steve kwan user experience designer

Phrases that, when used, reveal you to be a pretentious jackass

(March 18th, 2007 - 12:53PM)

• "I was listening to Modest Mouse long before they became mainstream."
  No you weren't. Nobody listened to them before they were mainstream.
• "You can do that in Linux."
  Maybe if you're a pretentious jackass.
• "It's no Life of Brian."
  Life of Brian sucked. Monty Python generally sucked. Anyone who thinks Monty Python is genius is either pretentious or British, in which case they're pretentious by default.
• "I'll have a venti double caramel macchiato."
  I've been going to Starbucks for a long time, and I've found that the caramel macchiato is the most pretentious drink they have.
• "The book was better."
  No it wasn't. You're just saying that because you want to sound intelligent.
• "Let me check my SHHedule."
  SCHEDULE.
• Any sentence containing the word "hypothesize."
  Unless you're a scientist, you should never use the word "hypothesize," and if you are a scientist then you're probably pretentious already.
• "I know what the user wants."
  No you don't. If you did, you wouldn't be calling them "the user" like they're some sort of abstract entity. And when I want to know what the user really wants, I'll ask the user.
• "My company couldn't survive without me."
  Your company was getting along fine before you, and they'll get along fine after.
• "I read about it on stevekwan.com."
  No comment.