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A well-actually occurs when someone's understanding is 90% correct, and someone comes along and says, heroically, "you're entirely wrong, because of this missing 10%". When iterated this kind of grandstanding erodes the confidence of someone who's working with a partial understanding, which in truth is all of us.


Particularly if the missing 10% is completely unrelated to the situation under discussion.

"Ok, so the client contacts the server and receives the result, but half of the result is missing, so...."

"Well, actually, the client uses DNS to look up the server's address first."

"Ok, thanks. Now I know."

A well-done well-actually is a brilliant demonstration of superiority.




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