I Beg Your Forbearance

I recently returned from Atlanta, Georgia where I attended the National Federation of Community Broadcasters Conference. Like most conferences, the learning sessions are spread out during the course of the day. Sessions like New Media; Community Engagement; Nontraditional Revenue Streams; Professional Radio Interviewing Skills; Better Web Sites; and What Can We Say to name just a few. Most people who know me know that I'm not a master of the English language even though my dearly departed mother was a honors English teacher. It seems like everywhere you go these days, whether it's a conference or meeting, someone's always trying to impress somebody with the shit that comes out of their mouths. Why must they do that? Do they get some sort of sexual gratification from doing it? They better ... because that's the only excuse I can possibly think of for doing it. Case in point, the opening presenter, after making several verbal errors made the statement "I beg your forbearance." What the hell's with that? I looked up forbearance in the dictionary and it defines forbearance as: to be patient. Needless to say, I lost mine right from the start. Why couldn't she have said "Please be patient with me." But no ... right from the get-go .. she starts out an NFCB conference with an obviosuly impressive word. Is that intentional? Does that shit just flow out of her mouth naturally? I'd have to study on the plane and stay up all night to come up with a single word like that! Anyway, I really enjoyed the conference ... until that guy wouldn't stop raising his hand