The general public (and by virtue that you are reading this blog excludes you) are by definition generally dense.

Take for example a recent incident that involved my wife requesting a simple “garlic bread with cheese” dish in The Plaza in Golf del Sur, Tenerife. Now, the menu contained garlic bread, garlic bread with tomatoes and cheeseburgers. My wife’s request for some garlic bread with cheese should not have been beyond the wit of the English woman taking the order…or so we thought.

“Have you had it here before?”, she squealed.

“No, but you have cheese and you have garlic bread and you can do garlic bread with tomatoes…therefore…”, we responded.

“I’ll have to check with the chef, to see if he can do it” replied the English woman.

This was “the sign”. He’s a chef for crying out loud, he can do anything. Well, anything, it seems, except call garlic bread with tomatoes on top bruchetta, but that’s another issue.

A few years ago a good friend introduced me to a phrase that can be used to identify these moments of daftness, cluelessness, call it what you will. SOS – this is the Sign Of Stupidity. You’re best using the shortend version: “the sign”, this way you can use the phrase “that’s the sign” in the company of fellow SOSers without alerting the general public who just are so good at exhibiting the sign.

Here is the original text.