[SI_Rob]

This is the one tic that makes it grating for me to listen to anything spoken by Noam Chomsky (interviews, discussions, monologues etc. - his written material not so much), regardless of how persuasive I may find his arguments.

Add "you can look it up" to the list, a frequent Chomskyism which sounds like a casual declaration of confidence in his sources but in effect functions as a rhetorical control device, in that it passively asserts the listener is uninformed about the data being referred to, and that Chomsky presumes not just the authority of an expert, but arrogates the prerogative to assign homework to his listeners/interlocutors as well.

[sachdevap]

I would suggest that your perception of his use of the phrase is just your perception. I have listened to him often, and never found him to be arrogant. He is not passively asserting that the listener is uninformed. He is just saying that the sources are abundant and easily available. Not to mention, he often cites people whose work he is referring to. If you are familiar with the work he is referring to, he is clearly not assigning homework to you. If you are not familiar, I don't see how it is arrogant to ask someone to familiarize themselves with a given perspective on the subject matter where sources are easily available.

And to assume that he does not have authority as an expert in a myriad of topics seems to be giving him little credit.

[big_chungus]

"You can look it up" is doubly annoying because it shifts the burden of defending a source from he who references it to he who questions it. If one wants to use evidence to support his argument, he alone is responsible for keeping a copy of the source for reference.