We used to deliberately switch “it is trivially obvious to the most casual observer that …” to “it is casually obvious to the most trivial observer” in order to remind ourselves that “obvious” doesn’t always mean what it means.
I once saw a heated argument between two bell labs scientists where A was shouting at B “you are wrong, you are just wrong” and after 1⁄2 hour of loud discussion in A’s office the door opened again at which point I heard A now shouting at B “your point is just trivially obvious.” I thought that was pretty good, moving a PhD Princeton Astronomer from “wrong” to “trivially obvious” in less than one hour. Agile minds!
We used to deliberately switch “it is trivially obvious to the most casual observer that …” to “it is casually obvious to the most trivial observer” in order to remind ourselves that “obvious” doesn’t always mean what it means.
I once saw a heated argument between two bell labs scientists where A was shouting at B “you are wrong, you are just wrong” and after 1⁄2 hour of loud discussion in A’s office the door opened again at which point I heard A now shouting at B “your point is just trivially obvious.” I thought that was pretty good, moving a PhD Princeton Astronomer from “wrong” to “trivially obvious” in less than one hour. Agile minds!