Try This

It’s very demoralising the way people keep referring to things that make them sound well-travelled and well-read but only because you dare not ask for a detailed note fearing you might thought of as the exact opposite. Now and then one such person would look at you say: “Ah! You are beginning to sound like Burnes straight out the Milwaukee trap”. Or, that there is a shade of the McGeorgian in the way you’ve written something. And you’d smile slightly, not knowing if it was a compliment or an insult. If it’s been said in front of a group, the rest would fidget around too. Each would act like they knew what exactly was being said here, making it even worse for the others to ask. I have my doubts if those who say such things have the foggiest either. They probably invented the words and names as they were talking. But asking for explanations would mean making it common knowledge that when it comes to intellectual wealth, you are the last person the tax-man will ever call up. So you play along. Now here’s the trick. The next time someone drops one of these on you, you can hit back with one of your own. Say, “You are making it sound like Persephone was a Norwegian nightmare.” Or just a “Cicero’s dilemma, you mean?” And watch them rush back to their Googles and their Wikipedias. To make things even more interesting, bring up a joke when the gang is really rolling around with laughter. Start with an obvious line: “What did the jackal say to the Eskimo in the sinking ship?” Allow a couple of minutes for the vision of the lead characters and the setting to form in the mind of your audience. Allow them to crane their necks and jostle their way closer to you, expectantly, because this they’ve never heard before. Then end it with a, “He said, you’d give Rudolph’s dragon the Nanopythiasis!” And when they burst out laughing, you can do the same. At least you would have got the joke.