Annoying experts

[Knight of Gondor]

I didn't want to start this topic at first, because it would seem that it belonged to others. This topic stems from the topic Annoying Amateurs, wherein we Downers can offer our complaints for amateurs who think they know as much or more than those of us who have read the books and even history books -- and they turn out to be completely ignorant.

This thread is for us to offer our thoughts and complaints about those who maybe do know as much or more, but "swagger it, swagger it my little cock-a-whoop". I had a case where a fellow I knew seemed to recall that Tom Bombadil sent the Ents to Helm's Deep. I was aghast that he kept insisting that happened, and when I finally got the book and challenged him to find it, he couldn't, but never admitted defeat.

Let's keep it happy, though!

[PaleStar]

You make a good point; alot of 'experts' that I've run into are very cocky...

[Gorwingel]

Oh I have run into this many times. I had a friend who whenever I would say the name of a character he would immediately correct my pronunciation, even though I swear I was saying the name correctly. I hated it because he was making me look like an idiot, and himself a genius. Some of the names are hard, and most of them are from a made up language! So I thought that he should of at least have given me a break (and besides at the time I was still quite new to the world of Tolkien).

[Knight of Gondor]

Okay, here I must plead guilty, for I myself might possibly correct pronunciation. I don't do it in an arrogant "You're wrong, dude!" style, but just more out of personal preference. In that case, I would hope to be correcting a semi-annoying amateur, but that doesn't make you one.

[Gorwingel]

Well, it would go like this...
I would say the name of a character, and then he would say "who?” and then I would say the name of the character again, and then he would say, "Oh, you were talking about...".
I don't know, I just found the act of it quite annoying.

But I am not trying to be mean in any way, shape, or form to people who correct people's pronunciation of the names. It is just that I am a person who has read the books multiple times, seen the films multiple times, and I am a member of the prestigious B-D's. So I personally thought that I was unfairly targeted (I believe that his level of knowledge was about equal to the level of mine, it is just that he had grown up in a family of fantasy literature lovers, and so he had grown up with the books, and I had not).

[Saraphim]

My particular breed of annoying is the fact that I never stop talking about the Lord of the Rings. I seize every opportunity to blather on about the books and/or movies to people whether I know them or not.

I find minute similarities in things in real life to Tolkien's universe, and then I talk about them for a very long time. To the annoyance of those in my immediate vicinity. It also doesn't help that I use more vocabulary than most of my fellow teenagers, either, but that's thier own fault. (see the "(Sp?)" thread for more of my thoughts on this )

[ohtatyaro]

this was first posted in annoying unbelievers topic, but I meant it to be put here at first, and put it there by mistake. It may apply there too, but here it is:



Here (by here I mean the real place I used to live, not the place on the internet), there is a place in one of the parks they call 'foul place'. But I hear it was fair once - when I was some three or four years old, it was called Eglador, and teenagers gathered there to have fun - read poetry (Tolkien's or theirs) and discuss Tolkien. Now it is full of drunken dudes who say they are elfs. As their idea of the proper behaviour for elfs is to find some 'orcs' and beat him or her up, it is no pleasant place to go. I can't say 'anymore', I don't remember when it was.

Those dudes is what I call 'annoying experts'. Dude with the club is annoying, and when he pretends to know what he is about - I'm an elf, you're an orc, come here, you!- that makes them 'experts'.

Interesting. I'll have 2 agree w/ u on this. I probably qualify as an "Annoying Amateur", but I also find Experts quite-irritating.

[Encaitare]

I don't think I know any truly annoying experts; rather, I admire the "experts" for their knowledge and dedication. For example, there is this man who runs the Ardalambion site (http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/) named Helge Kåre Fauskanger (had to copy and paste that -- couldn't spell it!) and he's an absolute genius. He's got all these analyses of all the languages and Quenya courses and I am just amazed by it.

I was reading until I heard someone nearby mention Frodo or something and I glanced over and started listening.

The same thing happened to my friend and I at lunch one day! We were having a normal conversation (or what is considered normal to us) and suddenly we heard someone across the room say "Frodo" and we just both stopped immediately and began to eavesdrop. Then we realized how pathetic we were and stopped... but only after the people had changed the subject!