&gt;  she would laugh at our jokes, use words like “trivial”, “modulo” and “orthogonal” in casual conversation, and even get their meaning right. She became, for all non-work purposes, a mathematician.<p>Is trivial not a word normal people use in conversation? Many people I know who are not Mathematicians or even in the STEM fields use this word in casual conversation. And even the ones that don&#x27;t use it at least know what it means.<p>-------<p>&gt;“Is anyone else concerned about your child’s hearing?” I was about to check “No” when Pink objected: “How would we know that no-one is? We can’t read everyone’s minds.”<p>So it looks like the author can actually think in a way that is not 100% logically correct. So answering “How could I be sure?” to “Are you absolutely sure that you will not hurt yourself today?” is obviously a bad idea, and was not a result of the author only being able to think and respond in a 100% logical way. She totally brought this on herself.