I noticed the averted gazes and unabashed disinterest of literary acquaintances whenever I mentioned my novel was young adult.
In my interviews with Zuckerberg for The New Yorker, he was visibly uncomfortable (eyes looking down, shifting in his seat) whenever I mentioned the movie — and understandably so.
"There was a bit of ribbing whenever I mentioned taking computer classes at Katharine Gibbs -- people were like, 'Isn't that a secretarial school?' " said Mr. Pearce, who is 24.
FOR the last decade, whenever I mentioned to anyone that I was working on a life of Bing Crosby, the usual response was, "Why?" I can't say I was surprised.
Terry Dobney, a sixty-five-year-old Gandalf look-alike who was protesting outside the visitor center, told me that he is "the Keeper of the Stones and the democratically elected ArchDruid of Avebury," a claim that elicited fond chuckles whenever I mentioned it to other Druids.
Even President Obama, at a dinner in Washington a couple of weeks ago, joked that Schwarzenegger would be starring in a new reality series, "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!" Whenever I mentioned Schwarzenegger to the masochists who covet his job, they responded variously with sympathy, qualified praise and backhanded compliments.
In fact, whenever I mentioned the beverage during a recent trip to Mexico, I was usually met with the kind of tempting warning an evil older brother gives his younger sibling – something akin to, "I don't know if you should try it.
There was also that part of me that wanted to experience the same charge to my ego that occurred whenever I mentioned my son's high school.
Traveling through, whenever I mentioned I was on my way to Tiraspol the rebel capital people told me I was crazy.
