Sir Surly's Ignorance, and Mine

Kobe Bryant was asked by a news reporter why he was so surly in interviews. Kobe answered, "I don't know what that word means." The reporter rephrased the question but might have chuckled afterward. It seems funny that someone who's a fine example of surly can't use the word in a sentence. Though Kobe Bryant is arguably the greatest basketball player alive today, I'll admit that my respect for him dropped just a little. How could he not know what surly means? We judge on so little: the smallest patches of ignorance prompt unreasonable reactions of laughter, incredulity, or shock among those who happen to know. When I was a graduate student, a professor laughed when I pronounced Appomattox with the accent on the second syllable instead of the third. It sounded pretty funny, I guess, but I felt like a dope. It happened again recently, but this time my grad students laughed at me when I pronounced doppelganger with soft g's instead of hard. Very funny! It seems unfair that blips of ignorance should produce such hearty responses, but the reaction seems inevitable, uncontrollable. So place your accent on the right syllable, don't replace hard g's with soft, and whatever you do, don't mis-spell potatoe. Or, if you do and you get laughter in return--don't be surly about it.