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Are you defining amateurs as people who are not your coworkers? It can still be an amateur mistake.

Coworker implies paid work, and therefore they are not amateurs. They very well may make the same mistakes, but those mistakes would be professional mistakes.

Why this level of pedantry when the meaning is absolutely clear? A professional can make an amateur mistake. This makes perfect sense. That isn't implying the professional is actually an amateur, but that he made a mistake that an amateur would make.

For some added pedantry: aren't all the mistakes that a professional might make, also ones an amateur would make?

In fact, it seems like an amateur is likely to run into all mistakes more often, thereby making all mistakes amateur mistakes; unless there some class of mistake that amateurs are better at avoiding?

There are probably mistakes an amateur cannot make because they can't penetrate the problems where the mistakes would be made.

That is some next-level bad faith. Impressive.

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