When you proclaim to solve a technical problem and a non-technical person asks what you did...

Me: "Well, it was complaining that it couldn't find a database by its alias name and then I realized the alias name was being applied to stored procedures used inline with the query but it had to be used on the fields being passed into those procedures instead."

Them: "Those sound like English words..."

Me: "I named the Table A and put the A's in the wrong spot."

Them (dubiously): "Oh, okay..."

They knew they wouldn't understand my answer. I knew they wouldn't understand my answer. Yet they ask anyways 😅

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SW-User

You couldn't explain it in basic terms so they'd get the gist of it, since they asked?

ViciDraco · 41-45, M

@SW-User this was more meant to highlight the humorous nature of technical jargon matching English words but containing entirely different definitions in a way that each word means something different to listener than it does the speaker and in so doing loses coherency as a sentence despite knowing each word spoken in the sentence.

It's not a dig at anyone's intelligence, but rather poking fun at both the English language and technical terminology re-using words for new concepts rather than inventing new words. I have been on the listener side of this exchange as well in fields I am not knowledgeable in.