[lit-ideas] Re: Prof Manners
- From: david ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:24:31 -0800
I am reminded today of a Jacques Brel song, "Les Bourgeois." When
last I heard it sung, I was about the same age as the young rebels of
the first verse and I laughed at the stuck-up old guys in the second
verse. (For the words see http://www.emt.it/broca/broca77/
brel.html). And now here I am, forty nine years old, Herr Doktor
Fullprofessor, thinking that some part of youth could do with a
lesson in manners.
How amusing.
Why do I think this today? Two proposals for talks, sent recently,
resulted in two e-mails that I read today. One of these explained
that the conference organizer wanted to keep the proposal, "on deck,"
and so he would get back to me in January. What could "on deck"
mean? I know it's a baseball metaphor, but what could be the kind
explanation? I can only think it means, "thank you, I'd like to keep
your proposal in reserve, to be added if this or that circumstance
occurs."
And the second proposal?
"Clearly, yours is one of the two messages I know accidentally erased!"
Accidents happen. E-mails sometimes express badly what is intended.
Perhaps the weather closing in has somehow made me more bourgeois and
pig-like--see Brel for reference. But I'm wondering now if the adage
about growing older and becoming like your parents applies to
academia. I was groomed by the most mannerly of advisors, H. Stuart
Hughes. Is it me or youth or both who are changing?
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
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