word

I witnessed two incidents involving people not knowing the definitions to specific words this week.

Bobcat
I got my hair cut on Tuesday at a barber shop where three or four barbers work. Usually when I get my hair cut I am good for about five to ten minutes of conversation, then I and the barber give up on trying to push the small talk any further. During this time, I can hear some of the other conversations going on around me.

Some guy behind me was telling his barber about how a Bobcat at work had been stolen because it was left in an unlocked container a few years ago. A year or two later the company purchased another Bobcat and when it went in for maintenance yet another year later, they found out that they had purchased back the exact Bobcat that had been stolen.

The barber sounded confused about some elements of the story, then made reference to owning a wild animal. Apparently, he had never heard of a Bobcat skid loader before.

Hubris
I have mentioned before that a few of the guys at work keep up with a "Word of the Day" daily calendar. It helps increase our vocabulary, but more importantly it provides common topics of discussion and debate.

One that we tore off the calendar yesterday is "hubris." I have come across this word often, which I assume means that it shows up in journalism quite a bit, because that is what most of my recent reading has been. Since I have read the word so frequently as of late, I made the statement that this is one of those words that everyone knows, but it sounds like a word that no one knows. I was challenged on the idea that almost everyone knew the meaning to the word, and a quick poll around the office showed that only four out of eleven people could recall the definition without any context clues. A couple of people said they could get it if the question was multiple choice. One of the four voluntarily provided the etymology.

Without looking the word up, do you know what it means? I will provide a definition later if someone hasn't already provided it.