Mostly Semantics

Do you ever tell a joke that’s just obscure enough or off kilter enough that no one laughs? Do you laugh when others make inappropriate jokes? I do because such bravery should be rewarded, nay, encouraged, but now I laugh at jokes that aren’t there.

Today at the office I attended a lecture about intellectual property classification. My job involves a lot of research. It also involves a lot of acronyms, and one of the ways to narrow a search involving an acronym exhibiting a plurality of definitions is by searching within a class. Of course, in general, the idea of dividing things into categories for more efficient searching is not at all new or interesting (i.e., loveboat), but it works remarkably well with the systems we use. The lecturer was eager to show us what he meant and this is how it went down:

Lecturer: “We need an example, so what are a few things ATM can stand for?”
Me: “Hahaha!!!”
Room: (silent pause) “Automatic Teller Machine?” “Acetone Toluene Methanol?”

Just my luck. I finally get it, only this time ain’t no joke.

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