Back when I was a lowly practicum student, I was asked to perform an assessment and offer an opinion as to the readiness of a parent for unsupervised visits with her kids. I did the evaluation, wrote up a letter for Child Protective Services, and submitted it for my supervisor's signature.
She hung on to it for a week. I couldn't figure out what the deal was--I mean, just sign it already!
When I finally got it back, I found that she had changed my recommendations so that they were no longer based on data from the evaluation. She had felt free to get it re-typed to suit herself, and to add insult to injury, my letter now contained a summary sentence to the effect that visits were "counter-intricated".
She wouldn't believe me when I told her that the correct term was "contraindicated." She argued that "counter" is a word, right? and "intricate" is a word, right? so if they are both real words, you can hyphenate them, and you have a real (compound) word, right? so what was my problem?
She refused to send it back to the typist: I refused to sign it the way it was.
Standoff.
The client never got her letter.
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