Today, I was having lunch with some friends and was speaking about someone in a conflictual relationship. Well my friends indicated to me that I had just introduced a new word or rather made up the word. The story was rather like the one described here. I didn't give much thought to it, until after my drive home from work. It then occurred to me that it was probable that I was wrong. My friends both attended prominent schools in the Northeast and are excellent writers and editors. At home, I went to Google to search for the word "conflictual" and found it within the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, in addition to the online dictionaries referenced in the story above.
My early education in the liberal arts has always reinforced the notion that schooling is for life, non pro schola sed pro vita. Then, upon some further reflection, as through some mysterious alignment, I discovered the Dunning-Krueger Effect using StumbleUpon. I liked it, needless to say! Today, I was okay with recognizing my own incompetence and therefore avoided presenting an inflated self-assessment.
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