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Acceptably Exceptional

On the ride home from work, the Conway Show was on the radio with Tim Conway Jr, and he threw out some fun wordplay.  He said that for Father's Day, he received a message from a friend saying he was an "acceptable" dad.  To which, he made a joke at the time, so the friend backtracked and claimed that he actually said, "exceptional,"  But someone wrote it down wrong.

So, here we have two words that sound very much the same, but they are at opposite ends of the scale of compliments.  Conway said he actually liked "acceptable" as the better compliment, because it was more honest.  "Exceptional" just sounded puffed up and fake.  Or, as he put it, "I have met many exceptional dads over the years, and I'm not in that company."

That bit was exceptionally acceptable.

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