ACI: A new way of measuring pretentiousness.
- Calvin Trillin
"When I entered the nearly empty bar near Grand Central, I was unsurprised—and, I’ll admit, rather pleased—to see, sitting on the stool he’d occupied when I was in the bar some months before, the mature gentleman who had told me that the economic crisis was inevitable once smart people started taking jobs on Wall Street. (“Our guys would have never invented credit default swaps,” he’d explained. “They couldn’t have done the math.”)
No sooner had I ordered a drink than we had occasion to exchange glances that communicated dismay: Three men who were sitting at the other end of the room had begun discussing wine in voices that seemed intended to enlighten oenophiles who were strolling past Rockefeller Center.
The man at the end of the bar nodded in their direction and said, “Among people who think of themselves as wine connoisseurs there’s a 61 percent ACI.”
I was puzzled. “What’s an ACI?” I asked.
He lowered his voice a bit, as if he was about to use somewhat offensive language and wanted to make certain no women (he would have said “ladies”) were in ear-shot. “Asshole Correlation Index,” he said.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/low_concept/2012/01/calvin_trillin_offers_a_new_way_of_measuring_pretentiousness.html
I love it.
