A friend says I am a "raconteur" ... what the heck is that?

I noted it once before, at least, and will gladly admit to it again: I don't know a damn thing.

It never, ever, surprises me that even what I think I know is very, very little.  As I wrote there:

As I get older, I seem to get even more amazed at how little I know.  As I joke around with students, the library building on campus serves as a physical reminder that I don't know a damn thing.  At USC, there were libraries all over the campus, and they all served me well in conveying whatever I needed to know and ensuring that I knew that I didn't know.

The latest in this stream of revelations came when I read an email from a friend in which he called me a raconteur.

I had no freaking clue what that big time SAT word meant.  raconteur?

Perhaps it is because I am older now that it is so easy to admit that I don't know.  I am pretty sure that in my younger days I would have pretended that I knew that word, or anything else that some other was talking about.  The ego of the youth, which then is beaten to an unrecognizable pulp by life's experiences.

So, when this friend wrote that I am a raconteur, while responding to my collection of observations that I had put together in a document, I consulted with my good old reliable partner--Google.  Thanks to this partner, I am often able to hide my stupidity!

Now I know what what raconteur means:

That is high praise. A compliment.

Or, as our Vice President might put it, a big fucking deal!

Hey, thanks ;)

Of course, there is another problem that this has generated: how to pronounce the damn word?

Last term, a student asked me how to pronounce the word "treacle" that was in one of the assigned materials for the class.  I have a standard response that I have developed over the years, which is what I told him and the rest of the class.  "You are in some serious trouble when you ask me how to pronounce a word, when you know very well that I butcher up pronunciations, including pronouncing my own name."  That always draws a chuckle.  And, in that process, I am off the hook; stupid is as stupid does, indeed!

Maybe I should do a Skype session with this friend and have him slowly pronounce the word for me.

I hope he will not change his mind after reading this post ;)