A co-worker of mine came in for her evening shift and I greeted her with an elaborate Latin nickname loosely related to her actual name. I thought of it on the spur of the moment. She didn't understand what I was talking about. It didn't help that she was born and raised in a far distant land that used even less Latin than we do. Either way, I ended up having to explain the term "Modus Operandi". A librarian nearby patched up my leaky explanation and a rambling discussion between the three of us followed.
As the instigator of all this nonsense, I felt an explanation was in order. "When it comes to language," I explained, "I abide by the Wayne Gretsky adage: 'You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
A short time later a kid's library book came in on our automated check in machine. It was called "A Girl Can Build Anything". The same librarian from earlier was in the area again, so I held up the book and asked "If a girl built a machine that made it so girls couldn't build everything, would we then weed this book?"
"Good question." They replied.
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." I replied.
I felt a refresher was already in order.
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