Polmassick

Posted on 2004/06/07 14:39:35 (June 2004) by john.

A little knowledge...

...can be a very useful thing.

I think I've stumbled across a new concept recently, which doesn't really have a word for it. So, in the grand tradition of Douglas Adams' and John Lloyd's The Meaning of Liff I'm going to take it upon myself to name it "Polmassick". (If you're curious, it's a little village in Cornwall, not far from Mevagissey).

Polmassick (n)
A single phrase (or the discipline of learning such phrases) relating to a subject area, of which the individual otherwise knows nothing about, interjected at random, allowing him to participate in conversations he would otherwise be excluded from.

Perhaps one of the most famous examples of a Polmassick is the episode of Father Ted where the bishop (or somebody like that) comes to visit, and Ted is very worried about what Father Jack might say during his stay. As a precaution, he trains Jack to answer "That would be an ecumenical matter." to every question he is asked.

I'm a great fan of Polmassicking (which I've just decided can be a verb as well). One of my particular favourites was for use when I would meet my friend Michelle's friends. They all did biology degrees, so typically if they talked shop it was way over my head. However, whenever the conversation fell silent, I always had my ace card up my sleeve: "Mind you, tardegrades... They're a good way of measuring biodiversity, aren't they?". If pressed, I could later summon a secondary Polmassick (for use only by the seasoned professional) to back up my apparent knowledge of Entymological matters, by coming out with "Well, it all depends on whether or not they have a colourless cuticle, doesn't it....?". You would be amazed by the nods and murmurs of agreements such statements generate.

Electronics is another sphere in which I have traditionally found myself struggling to keep up with the conversation. Over time though, I have developed a small arsenal of Polmassicks to manage an effective defence from the social catastrophe of looking uninformed. Any sentence containing "Phase Locked Loop" seems to be remarkably effective, especially when combined with words like "re-align" and "invert". When somebody approaches me with a query about a circuit board they must surely know I have no idea how to fix, I have in the past been able to get a surprisingly long way by asking "Are you sure you haven't got that plugged into the five volt rail...?", which is typically accompanied by pointing vaguely at a component somewhere on the board in question. No doubt months of development time have been wasted at my company through our hardware engineers unnecessarily checking power connections on these kinds of boards. If ever I observe anyone using an oscilloscope (which I can't even spell, let alone use), I'll often helpfully suggest "Don't you need to increase the size of your integration window?". Similarly, it transpires almost all hardware faults can be fixed if the engineer simply follows my helpful suggestion of "Make the FIFO bigger, slap on a couple more resistors, and an FPGA with a few more gates." Clearly I have no idea whatsoever what any of this means, but the questions seem to keep on coming, which to me is as good a sign as any that my previous Polmassick answers have been well appreciated.

Sport is yet another area I end up struggling conversationally with. However, yet again, Polmassicks have lept to my rescue. My current favourite is for cricket: "They've taken an early tea". If you're ever mistaken for somebody who might know something (or indeed care at all) about cricket, and are asked what the current score is, or anything like that, I heartily recommend rolling out this rather excellent Polmassick, without a moment's thought. Football is another area rich in Polmassick potential, given that the standard phraseology used by commentators and the like is such total meaningless bollocks to begin with. The old classics like "It's a game of two halves" will serve you well in many situations, as well as such other gems as "Well I really think they need to go for a win in this game". Marvellous.

Fashion, traditionally another black hole of understanding for me, is yet more easy picking in Polmassick terms. As I'm still finding my feet in this area I tend to stick to questions rather than statements. Have a go with "Have you seen the new Gucci range this season?", which, if you're brave, can be followed up with "Wow, they've really managed to blend the conventional with the avant garde, haven't they?". And so on.

At a barbeque a few weeks ago, I got talking to a bloke who I managed to convince that my job had nothing to do with computing (an achievement in itself). I was discussing the concept of Polmassicking, albeit nameless at that point, and he then took it upon himself to teach me a couple of useful Polmassicks for the unlikely event that I would ever have to get into a conversation with computery types. Apparently, a good catch-all problem solver is "Maybe there's an issue with your IP Stack...?".

It occurred to me at this point what a great and pointless quest I could set myself in life. Every time I meet somebody from a different field of expertise to my own, I could learn a new Polmassick. Think of all the doorways it could open. The more I Polmassick, the more I come to the conclusion that, basically, most people talk meaningless crap to each other most of the time, and it is in fact very easy to blag your way through a conversation on just about anything.

Polmassicking. Try it, I think you'll like it.

Polmassicking is actually very easy in banking because no-one really knows what they are talking about. They can be talking about cross-collateraleralisation or overcollateralisation and they haven't a clue. As long as it sounds like a banking term, you can engage in random Polmassicking.

Another useful term I would like to propose is Cross-Polmassickification. This is where you haven't much of a clue about two subjects but by throwing words together from both, you can get remarkable results.

For example, let's say you know next to sod all about programming and cheese. You're sitting around a table with a load of cheese experts and a load of programmers. The programmers will understand the programming terms and the cheese people will understand the cheese terms. Therefore, they will never actually understand eveything you say. You can get away with:

Algorithmic Curdling
Mature OO Design
etc

Posted by Rob Lang at 2004/06/07 16:32:25.

Very good points there Rob. The rest of this week, I will try my upmost to use "algorithmic curdling" as much as possible.

Posted by John at 2004/06/07 17:24:17.

I have remebered another one of my favourites. It's for use when you overhear people having a conversation about, say, the route they drive to work. They'll typically get into a horrid loop of reeling off names of A roads, B roads and motorways.
At any time when you feel comfortable, simply add in "I've heard they're going to widen that dual carriageway.", and it will make sense no matter where they were in their conversation. Those of a Monty Python persuasion can even go so far as to say "There'd be plenty of room if they knocked down that hospital". Although, of course, at this point the serious nature of your contributions to the discussion may suddenly come into question.

Posted by John at 2004/06/08 10:05:06.

I like that. I saw a child Polmassicking just a week ago on the train to work. She was about 4 years old and her auntie and uncle were talking about moving to the 'West Country', weighing up the benefits as you do. The child was listening while climbing on people's luggage. Very sweet. The child suddenly interjected:

"You can't live in the West. That's were cowboys come from!"

At which point the entire carriage burst into laughter.

This actually teaches us a valuable lesson. Don't Polmassick unless you're sure you can get away with it.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2004/06/08 13:51:39.

Another question!

Where did you get the word Polmassick from? Is it a European country?

Posted by Rob Lang at 2004/06/08 13:52:32.

It's a village in Cornwall. I was convinced Cornwall was rich picking for as yet unused Meaning of Liff names, so I just looked on the map in the region of Mevagissey, and hey presto.

Posted by John at 2004/06/08 15:10:50.

This concept has been around for a *long* time - it's called "Bluffing". There was a whole series of books written about your Polmassicking called "A Bluffer's Guide to... Rugby, Publishing, Computers" etc. etc. etc. Small and printed on poor paper, they were, however indispensible when meeting people you want ed to impress.

Posted by Alwyn at 2004/06/09 11:00:36.

You see John, Rob didn't even read the first para properly!!

Posted by Mad Mumsie at 2004/06/09 13:05:07.

There's the opposite where you have a great deal of knowledge and you meet some one with virtually nill.

Driver, "Scuse us mate, do you know where so and so is?

Me, "Sorry mate, I aint local".

Posted by Karl at 2004/06/16 18:22:15.

When standard Polmassicks fail, there are certain expressions one can use to derail a conversation or at least switch to another track. For example, the riposte "...as the bishop said to the actress" (or vice versa) can give an unexpected twist to a wide variety of remarks. There is then a general guffaw and you suggest it's so-and-so's turn to buy the next round, and start off on a new tack!

Posted by dave b at 2004/06/28 12:50:58.

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