I don’t know about you, but I had suspected that this one was something of an urban myth, encountered only in sitcoms or observational comedy. As I came across it myself, yesterday, in a verbal interaction, I do suspect that it only appears verbally, and not in written form, in its non-ironic instances. (I don’t go in for finger-pointing for the sake of it, but if you do come across a written instance, do let me know.)

So, for the avoidance of doubt:

Pacific means peaceful in either intent or character (or both), or related to the Pacific Ocean.

Specific, which I would like to hazard a guess is 99.9% of the time the word the user means to use, means precise, clear, clearly defined – so “would you like your new mattress delivered on a specific date or don’t you mind when it arrives?” and is also used in relation to a particular subject – “These tufts are specific to this particular kind of mattress”.

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.