Main Page » Miscellaneous »

BOCTAOE

Created: / Modified:

Always use secure-HTTP / Unsecure HTTP / Permanent Link

"But of course there are obvious exceptions."

The above saying (and acronym) was coined by Scott Adams, who got tired of saying things like "It's a nice day," and getting responses like "It may be nice here, but elsewhere in the world the weather might be bad, and some people have crappy lives in general."

Implications

Someone who includes BOCTAOE somewhere essentially means: Just because I do/did not explicitly point out or acknowledge any or all exceptions to a generalized statement does not mean that I am unaware of said exceptions, let alone is it an invitation to point out the exceptions to me or draw my attention to them. Furthermore, when I qualify generalizations with "most" or "usually" or "almost all/none" etc., this is an explicit acknowledgement of the exceptions. Either way, you do not have to point them out to me.

All generalized statements made on this website should be assumed to contain a silent BOCTAOE. This also applies to the previous sentence.

Also, know the difference between an opinion and something stated as fact. "I don't like X" is the former. "X is bad" is the latter.

2 Comments (auto-closed) (rss feed)

pixelbob

boctaoe, ive read this somewhere in a book i remembering it being lolarious but i don't remember the book. is this from the book or some sort universal logic thing i never knew about

Emperor Dodd

I believe that would be the book Stick To Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain, by Scott Adams. At least, that's where I've heard it before, and the explanation given here matches that in the book, complete with crediting the concept to Scott Adams.