being as ignorant as the boss

[Mark A. Mandel]

"pedit" is a powerful little editing program for PDAs running PalmOS. I just
saw this exchange on the users' listserver list:

------ [from Paul Nevai, the creator of pedit:]

# And is pEdant a synonym for pEditor? :-)

This is a true story: one of the pedit users requested his money back since
he thought pedit sounded like pedophile [this wasn't a joke, he meant it,
and
he got his money back].

------ [from a user:]

I ran across a story a while back about a chap who had been Training
Director for a company.  He circulated a memo where he discussed
training initiatives, and talked about "sound pedagogical principles".
  He later discovered the female EVP wanted to fire him.  He went to
the HR Director, who said "Don't worry.  I'll take care of it."  It
seems the EVP equated pedagogy with pedophilia, concluded the Training
Director was a noxious pervert, and wanted him fired.

Shortly thereafter, a directive came down from senior management
telling all employees to restrict usage in memos to words commonly
found in the newspaper.  (Apparently, to avoid demonstrating the EVP's
ignorance again.)  The Training Director resigned soon after, and
composed his letter of resignation by cutting and pasting words from
the daily paper.  :-)

------- [my own addition to the thread:]

I read some time ago about an English pediatrician (or "paediatrician") who
was run out of town by some moron/hooligans who scrawled ugly graffiti
across her office front. Yes, they thought she was advertising herself as a
pedophile ("paedophile").

The weirdest part is that they apologized for their mistake afterward. Or
maybe that's just British.

m a m

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