[tjradcliffe]

Have you considered the possibility that this overt faux-ignorance might be in response to a situation where:

a) everyone expects you to know the difference between a safety touch and a free safety

and

b) no one knows the difference between muonium and muonic hydrogen (a difference I myself just learned today)

and

c) if you do know the difference between muonium and muonic hydrogen you instantly get treated with contempt?

I'm not sure that this is the case, but having lived my whole life in a world that treats almost everything I care about with overt and sometimes violent contempt, I can certainly see people who care more about art, science, literature or poetry acting out a bit to give the rest of the world the feeling they have when they try to talk to anyone about anything that matters to them.