Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Correctness Quotient

For all of my friends I have, secretly, stored in the back of my mind, a number representing what percent of the time, overall, they are correct about any statement of fact or quasi-fact. I call this their CQ. For some people, their CQ is subject specific. For example, my mother's CQ is 90%, but that rises to 99% when she is giving directions. My colleague, ok actually boss, John Galvin has a irritatingly high CQ-- let's say 97, 98% except on matters relating to politics (50%) or children's relative chess strength (75%). Having a high CQ is obviously good in certain ways, but having a low one isn't necessarily so awful. My boyfriend, for example, has an incredibly low CQ, but I (recently) figured out that's because:
a) he's conversationally ambitious, meaning he says a lot of provocative, imaginative things and
b) he enjoys telling outrageous lies for fun.

I mention this because I am very ashamed to have gotten my rule about doubling letters wrong and know that my CQ is plummeting in your minds. Conversely I'm very impressed by anijaoshi's "stress on the last syllable" correction-- less so by the running-pruning one, since prune doesn't end in an consonant?

Naturally, I also have a "Lateness Quotient" stored for each friend.

On a side note, whoever it is who's voting 'no' every single day in my poll ... I hope you are having a lot of fun, weirdo.

Finally, I'm not playing in Amateur Team East, but I will be there with a truckload of children (badly taught, horribly competitive, ill-mannered children :)). Say hi if you feel like it.

4 comments:

Greg Shahade said...

Whats my CQ?

Elizabeth Vicary said...

I SINCERELY AND DEEPLY BELIEVE THAT GREG SHAHADE IS THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD WITH NO EXCEPTIONS AND NO TIES.
--ELIZABETH VICARY

Anonymous said...

And yet he chose your blog above all others!!

-Matt

(Joking! [with no "kk"] )

P.S.

I'll look for you at USATE. Are you *sure* you want to bring kids to this thing? :)

-M

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.