Radio 4 on skunk

[MixedFeelingsNoFeelings]

The Beeb is the gift to Pedants' Corner that keeps on giving.

The consumer programme You and Yours had a piece today about outlet shopping centres, and whether they're as good value as they seem. Presenter Winifred Robinson was talking to Pooja Adam, a personal stylist who used to work at Bicester Village.

I present the following for the despair-tinged pleasure of pedants everywhere.

WR: Do you think there's a bit of trap to spend more money, because you've come a long way, you've made a special trip?
PA: Absolutely, there's a funny term called the 'skunk cost fallacy' -
WR: (interrupts) The what, the 'skunk cost fallacy'? Ha ha!
PA: Yes, ha ha! [...] You feel like you have to spend money to justify coming all that way.

@MixedFeelingsNoFeelings ,I'd only seen it written so I said cotton easter. Someone corrected me. He was right to do so and I took no offence.

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Well yes, but, at the risk of digging a hole here, surely a well educated young person understands the difference between a fabulous 19thc replica and the 900 year old original.

Maybe not if they’d seen it when they were a small child and not thought about it since?
I realised recently that I had a vague memory of seeing Trajan’s column when I was a child - but I didn’t go to Italy until I was an adult. It must have been the replica - in two halves - in the V&A that I’d seen.

Quite right. No one should ever mock mispronunciations which have obviously arisen from a person having read a word rather than having heard it.

He did it with a chuckle but not maliciously. Mocking is never acceptable.

What does well-educated mean? Much of what I know, not that I know much, is from reading and listening, and not from formal education.

I’m confused- surely the interview was pre-recorded? I wonder what the BBC were thinking by keeping it in? I can see they might have felt it was a bit dickish to explain the correct term then ask her to re-record the answer, but surely could just have edited it out altogether?

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I'm glad they left it in as it was memorable. Next time I go to an Outlet, I'll be thinking 'Is this a skunk?'

I'll also be applying the Skunk Cost Fallacy to my decluttering, which will make it more fun.

There's many a costly skunk lurking in my wardrobe!

My wardrobe is the work of a magpie and a squirrel. The skunks have to go.

Mind you, skunks are very costly these days.

I've been bagging up some skunks to take to the charity shop.
I'm de-skunking my life.

It's no fallacy!