Warning! The following paragraph contains poetry and elevated language, some of which makes no sense. If you do not possess a large vocabulary do not attempt to read unless the Internet is nearby.

As written by Dante Alighieri in the “Inferno,” “Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.” The imperative axioms of mastering the lexicon within a published essay, which escort the scholar to be mise-en-abyme but unnecessarily forces them into slavery of circumlocution, as precedents lain down by pre-Raphaelites above the Romantic torpor, unfortunately but facilely perturb the bourgeoisie to the apex of truculence. The circuitousness of the auteur ignites a vendetta quelled only by the metastatic devices of linguistics and language from the hubristic serf-turned-savant. Thus a juggernaut of bickering maelstroms manifests, consuming all in the abyss, which could easily be alleviated by exploiting the veracity of either opponent.

While it is hard to distinguish between a person who knows his stuff and one who uses Thesaurus.com cunningly on paper, exposing the scholar as a man who skims Wikipedia pages has become a quirk of mine I use to entertain myself at boring office parties. An inquisitive mind and a little background information will ensure hours of fun for you and hours of torture for your “sheep skinned scholar.”

And much like the wolf garbed in sheep skin, the “sheep-skin scholar” quite easily can pass as a professor, commentator, politician, writer, theorist, carpenter, firefighter, nerd or any type that benefits him or her. Thus, the Step 1 becomes obvious: Identify the knowledge fraud culprit; one must be careful, however, for high language is not a sure giveaway. Listen for awkward usage of larger vocabulary words. For example:

Regular Guy: Have you seen the movie “The Godfather” yet?

Sheep-skinned scholar: Oh, yes, it was quite salubrious.

Regular Guy: So you liked it?

Sheep-skinned scholar: That’s what I just said. Jeez, Regular Guy, you can be quite benighted sometimes.

Regular Guy: What did you call me !?

A major reason for employing a higher vocabulary is to distract from the truth that the “sheep-skin scholar” has no idea what he’s talking about. In the above example, he’s never seen “The Godfather.” Yet with a light-hearted “Make you an offer you can’t refuse” joke, which he heard just yesterday, he could have passed as a film aficionado. In addition, following in the footsteps of many philosophers, these scholars avoid details and focus on overarching themes with vague terms like hard determinism, cosmic irony, life, love and death.

But why disguise oneself? Step 2: Identify motivation. Survey the scene. Who is the “sheep-skin scholar” talking to? His or her boss? A cute girl? A cute guy? A group of people? Himself? If the target is at a murder mystery party, then drop the pursuit; it can be assumed he or she is lying to win the game. Aside from winning party games, the main motive for disguising one’s true knowledge on a subject is to impress another individual. For my friends, I have stretched very thin my knowing of sports. In truth, I cannot tell an ESPY from an ESPN (and that is the extent of any sports related humor I can conjure), but referring to vague terms such as offense, defense or goal units, I appear to be as good a sports commentator as John Madden (for that, I looked on Wikipedia). Thus, by display of knowledge or wit, the target attempts to better his or herself. Coolly pass by the conversation; if “I” constitutes 30 percent of the vernacular used, then there is a certainty he or she is pumped full of hot air and is eligible for truth exposal.

The “sheep-skin scholar” may have the target audience fooled about how he saved his Sherpa’s life on Mt. Everest by letting him grab on to his Nobel Peace Prizes but not an aware, truth-seeking individual. Step 3: Identify weaknesses in the conversation topic. Step 3 is considered by most critics the most difficult or at least the most tedious because in order to expose his or her statements as false, one must have an extensive knowledge on the subject. Unfortunately, this might take weeks, months, years, decades, etc. But time does not stop the righteous exorcism of the truth. Thus, a substep (not a dubstep) is needed: Research. Merge into the hapless putty-minded crowd and listen for the subject; I’ll use quantum physics as an example. Enroll in a university or college with extensive classes on quantum physics. Study hard, get into the honors program, join some clubs (some pertaining to quantum physics and some for fun), get an internship at CERN or the Fermi Lab, meet the woman or man of your dreams, date, get married, argue about how you put work first, divorce, dive deeper into quantum theory and earn the Nobel Prize in Physics for your work on Quantum Chaos.

Of course, a smartphone can be an efficient replacement for step 3. Either way, reengage the target and proceed to step four.

Step 4: Strike. Now, the possibility exists that the sheep skinned scholar is actually a scholar. To overcome this possibility, one must ease into the conversation, neither accusing or denying the veracity of his or her statements. In fact, compliment the target on his or her knowledge of the subject; this throws off initial suspicions and allows for greatest impact of the upcoming interrogation. Though the truth-seeker is armed to the teeth with smart grenades and knowledge bombs, retrain power, and allow for a peer to comment first, perhaps about a very specific. To amplify the effect, hire a friend or his hers to ask this question, thus, allowing for predictability. If the subject answers vaguely, further egging is needed. Once a mistake eeks out of the target’s lie-factory, then expose the sheep-skin wolf for what he or she truly is. The following is a possible scenario using the previous quantum physics examples (All research involved is valid).

Cast:

You — A seeker of truth, a defender of the right and hunter of the sheep-skin scholar

Zach — Sheep-skin scholar, sharp dresser and the man who was just hitting on your ex-lover

Bob — Hired friend of Zach

Setting:

Cocktail party downtown

Bob: What do you think about the Higgs boson?

Zach: I believe its discovery will result in ramifications good and bad. I mean, we could discover light speed travel or unravel creation.

You: Wow, that is deep, man.

Zach: Thanks, stranger.

You: But it wasn’t truly discovered.

Zach: What?

You: Ian Low of the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois believes scientists at CERN didn’t discover the Higgs boson but instead discovered a mix of particles that may include the Higgs boson in different forms. He said, and I quote, “A generic Higgs doublet and a triplet imposter give equally good fits to the measured event rates.”

Zach: Well, yes, but —

You: It was even broadcasted. CERN announced it had found a new particle that is “consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson”. Consistent! That does not prove it was the Higgs Boson. I mean, the only way of spotting the Higgs is to look for the signature of particles that it produces, such as pairs of photons or pairs of other heavy particles called Z bosons.

Zach: …True, but fitting the data with the Standard Model —

You: Here, look at this chart.

[Brings out chart.]

Zach: You brought a chart?

You: Here, the predicted signatures of the Higgs boson and the triplet imposter are both within one sigma of the measured value. And by one measure, the CERN data even favors the triplet imposter. Where did you get your facts, Wikipedia?

Zach: (Sniff) Yes.

[Runs away crying]

You: The truth has been told!

Bob: Can I have my 50 bucks now?

The lessons learned in destroying this man or woman’s credibility will last a lifetime. Lessons like “knowledge is power,” “the pen is mightier than the sword,” “actions speak louder than words” (wait a minute…) and that truth must held above everything else. People cannot masquerade as something they’re not for very long; however, organizations do not follow this rule. Anyway, be warned: They’re out there. Among the crowds, in adjoining bathroom stall, surfing the Internet, leaving annoying comments on YouTube videos. Who knows? I could be one. Good luck and happy hunting your sheep skinned scholar.