DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

A friend remarked that I use the word “however” a lot. “You make these huge, grand statements,” he explained, “and then with however you take it all away.” He didn’t give any examples, but here’s one he might have used: “I am making a huge, grand statement. However, I may have my head up my ass.”

And that’s sort of the point. First, take the fact that I’m an engineer by trade. Actually that’s not quite accurate — I’m an engineer by birth. Accuracy is important to me. Empirical data is my currency. Secondly, although the physical, empirically-measurable world provides a lot of potential for sweeping, broad statements, e.g. objects falling on Earth accelerate at a rate of 9.8 m/s/s, those don’t typically come up in conversation. Whereas the sort that do, e.g. canned meat products are disgusting, often need to be qualified, because I quite enjoy a Spam sandwich from time to time.

I’ve seen the other side — I studied psychology for a number of years. Splitting time between psych classes, in which nearly nothing is certain, and engineering classes, in which the only thing that is NOT certain is how I ever imagined I’d pass the final exam, I saw with clarity this imbalance. And so, although I feel most at peace in a world where events can be predicted from input data, I happen to inhabit a very different world: a world where input data is inscrutable, a place where events cannot be predicted, a place where some men drink wine coolers.

It’s not about being afraid to take a stand. It’s about recognizing the complex, chaotic reality of our world. Strictly speaking, it is more accurate to qualify general statements, and from this quest for accuracy, I tend to qualify pretty much everything, e.g. “pretty much everything.” Hence, “however.”

In fact I have a whole arsenal of these words: but, although, somewhat, still, perhaps, maybe, sort of, possibly, provisionally, not precisely, well, err, umm, and no. I’m not waffling. Not really, anyway.