Oot and Aboot with Some Canadian Skeptic

So, the other day, I went out to a local gas station. I go there often, and the clerk knows me at least by face.

He's a nice enough guy. Homespun, towny, incurious, content, jovial. Sort of like a sedate Johnathan Winters. Unlike when I usually go to the station, I decided to help myself a magazine before I left. I picked it up, along with a few other trinkets and intended to pay my bill, say a few kind words and be off.

He took a look at the magazine, a copy of Scientific American, and a look of surprise came over his face.

"I didn't know you were a scientologist!" he exclaimed.

".....", I replied.

It was probably a simple slip of the tongue on his part. It happens. People not exposed to the science-culture often will freely exchange Scientology for science, astrology for astronomy, and Andromeda for legitimate television. (ba-zing!) But is it possible that there is some ignorance behind his error-in-neologism? Probably, though it gives me no pleasure to speak with such derision. I know the guy enough to say with a reasonable margin of error to say that he probably does not know the difference, and is likely to, at least partially, intermix science and scientology whenever they cross is path (which I suspect is rarely).

Am I so squeamish to get uncomfortable when such a decent, harmless man makes such an egregious error in nomenclature? Should I just suck it up? If I do, what then? Do I just reinforce his ignorance and say "yes, I'm a scientologist", or do I correct him, "Umm, actually, it's scientist", coming off as a right-prat in the process?

And I'm not even a scientist! At best, I'm science-literate, but that's barely even a thing to be!




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