MATTHEW VALDINI TASTE PURGATORY 
Score. Shuffling around chugging Franzia at a painting exhibit, we happened to hear a man describe one of the splotched atrocities on the wall as “percussive.” This meant nothing to the two of us, if it even needs to be said, except that the guy was a blowhard. But we gained courage as the evening went on and the box wine kept flowing, and we began sidling up to people at random and using percussive to describe whatever they were looking at. “I don’t know; it’s a little percussive for my taste.” “Red, yet percussive. It’s breathtaking.” You can probably picture the reactions. Furrowed brows, pursed lips, and nodding heads from one and all. Deep in contemplation or fettered by politeness, no one asked us to explain this usage. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them even chided themselves for not having thought of it first. Spend enough time around experts (or people who so fancy themselves), and you might start to talk funny. If you happen to be an expert yourself—real or imagined—you assume your listener has a given level of knowledge, and before long shorthand communication becomes not only convenient but necessary. As far as those gallery patrons could tell, we really knew our stuff, and we could have been saying something profound. The fact that the word we used was superficially irrelevant may even have given it a little extra charge. I’ve since heard far sillier things at art galleries.
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