My suspicion, since he's quoting a common witticism, is that you ARE taking it a little too hard.
Many 'common witticisms' are petty mean-spirited put-downs. They depend on denigrating the target to get a cheap laugh. And they are frequently excused with some variation of that old bully's line of 'I was only JOKING!'.
On the other hand, you did a hell of a good job getting your PhD, and that is no small thing. Most of us won't ever get anywhere near doing so.
No teasing is ever going to take that accomplishment away from you. You did it and you should be justly proud of having done so.
Trouble is, you see, that this kind of put-down is supposed to sap her pride and rob her of her justifiable joy at having achieved her goal.
What's wrong with simply saying congratulations, anyway? She worked hard and she contributed to the overall knowledge of the human race in a verifiable way. All this common witticism does is make light of her accomplishment and take a little bit of joy out of the world.
I'm not ragging on you, so much as on the attitude behind the kind of remarks Rivka had to deal with as described above.
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Date: 2003-09-03 01:21 pm (UTC)Many 'common witticisms' are petty mean-spirited put-downs. They depend on denigrating the target to get a cheap laugh. And they are frequently excused with some variation of that old bully's line of 'I was only JOKING!'.
On the other hand, you did a hell of a good job getting your PhD, and that is no small thing. Most of us won't ever get anywhere near doing so.
No teasing is ever going to take that accomplishment away from you. You did it and you should be justly proud of having done so.
Trouble is, you see, that this kind of put-down is supposed to sap her pride and rob her of her justifiable joy at having achieved her goal.
What's wrong with simply saying congratulations, anyway? She worked hard and she contributed to the overall knowledge of the human race in a verifiable way. All this common witticism does is make light of her accomplishment and take a little bit of joy out of the world.
I'm not ragging on you, so much as on the attitude behind the kind of remarks Rivka had to deal with as described above.