I am new here, so I do not know how much I can contribute to the growing discussion.
Perhaps it may be useful to understand where something comes from in order to better handle it. A well known evolutionary argument, popularized by biologists such as Dawkins, suggests that there is an asymmetry in the evolutionary pay off between making false positives and false negatives. A Pleistocene hominid, as the argument goes, might at most waste some energy running away from a noise in the bushes that turns out to be nothing, but may waste its life if it does not ru... (read more)
Possibly the phrase "I needn't have bothered [..] after all"? e.g.:
It's not directly saying they should have known, but it is saying they judged so inaccurately that reality took them by surprise so much it was worth commenting on.
Also the phrase "I don't know what we were worried about" fits a similar template - not a scolding for not knowing, like "should have known" is, but yes an admission of feeling overprepared for something which didn't happen and now questioning the reasons they had earlier.
2NancyLebovitz
I think you're right-- "you should have known better" seems to come into play after something goes wrong, rather than for taking possibly excessive precautions if such precautions are merely a waste of effort.
I am new here, so I do not know how much I can contribute to the growing discussion.
Perhaps it may be useful to understand where something comes from in order to better handle it. A well known evolutionary argument, popularized by biologists such as Dawkins, suggests that there is an asymmetry in the evolutionary pay off between making false positives and false negatives. A Pleistocene hominid, as the argument goes, might at most waste some energy running away from a noise in the bushes that turns out to be nothing, but may waste its life if it does not ru... (read more)