Faux Word of the Day: expertease

August 25, 2011 Faux Word of the Day: expertease

Faux Word of the Day actually started out as a joke between me and myself, a pretty standard communication these days.  Since I only had one faux word at the time (punintentional), the idea was that the series would be a one-parter:  One word.  One day.  One joke.

The end.

But as with most things in my life, especially when it comes to jokes, I don’t know when to stop.  (That’s what she said.)  And so, shortly thereafter, we learned about:

• fauxjectivity
• gendrification
• NetFlixtion
• annexiety
• glawking

And now, here we are with the latest edition: expertease.

expertease (ex-per-teez)
noun

the condition of having  a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area such that the depth of understanding inadvertently but severely degrades the individual’s ability to enjoy reasonably sufficient goods or services.

For example: “Ever since I spent that semester in Scotland surrounded by 30-year single malts, I can’t even bring myself to take a sip of Johnny Walker Black.  What an expertease.”

Expertease is a bit of conundrum.

Essentially, the more educated or experienced you are in certain areas of life, the less able you are to extract happiness from situations that draw upon that knowledge.

Education of course can (and should!) prevent you from continuing to make horrible choices, like the first time I tried a microbrew (Smuttynose Old Brown Dog Ale, I believe) and decided that Keystone Light just wasn’t going to cut it anymore.  But at a certain point, you suddenly find yourself so keenly aware and your tastes so refined that you are no longer willing to accept objectively average or even slightly-above-average product.

Basically, when you hit the point of expertease, your knowledge becomes so great that that you…

1. are no longer able to enjoy a reasonably acceptable class of product that was once a source of pleasure
2. find yourself spending more money and/or time in order to meet your newfound, pinkie-out high standards
3. become completely insufferable and impossible to hang out

For your sake and the sake of those around you, be wary of expertease!

Confucius once said,

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”

I have a feeling Confucius spent a ton of money on fancy scotch.

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