what is an expert?

an expert is someone that YOU feel has advanced knowledge or skills in a certain field...

the classification is an entirely subjective and personal matter... calling someone an expert is a sign of respect that a person or persons can show to another person, however there are certain ways in which the label can lose it's meaning...

one way the title of the title of expert can lose it's meaning is when the the person holding the title of expert gave him/herself that title... this is the self-proclaimed expert that most people recognize as not being a REAL expert, at least when they recognize that the title was self-given... you see it's easy to identify a self-proclaimed expert when the person actually calls themself an expert, but it can much harder to identify them when they simply act like they're experts... one tell tale sign of an implicit self-proclaimed expert is making claims and then failing to back them up in a reasonable and logical way... it's not always so clear, however, so the line between the implicit self-proclaimed expert and the person who is just confident that s/he is right can become quite blurred... that's one of the reasons why i occasionally take it upon myself to explicitly state that i am not an expert, so that people won't mistake me for a self-proclaimed (or even real) expert...

another way the title of expert can lose it's meaning is when it's applied through the 'friend of a friend' approach... this is where person A says person B is an expert and instead of taking that declaration with a grain of salt (as one should) and determining for yourself if person B really deserves to be called an expert, you simply take person A's word for it for whatever reason... this effectively gives person B respect (your respect) that person B hasn't earned - and respect is something that should definitely be earned, not just given away...

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