[lit-ideas] Re: why can't the english (professors) learn how to speak?
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 13:54:20 -0330
Feeling the years / grumping away:
1. A cashier at Shoppers Drug Mart gave me a senior's discount without asking.
(I complained to the manager and she has been moved to the stockroom.)
2. A young lady offers me her seat on a crowded subway car. (I complained to
the
driver and she was tossed off the car. No, no trolley problem there.)
3. Beig referred to as "Opa Valter" come March.
4. Undergrads asking me to put my class notes online. (No, I never had class
notes. Should I start now? And even if I did, I don't do technical support.)
5. Having upper university administration who are younger than I am.
6. Students who are younger than my 26 yr old daughter.
7. A young lady offers me her seat ... oh, yes, already mentioned that one. But
it really irks me.
8. A weakening backhand in table tennis.
9. Recalling a book from the library only to be told I have already checked it
out. (And its due next week, damn!)
10. Being the only person in an undergrad class who has seen *Rear Window*,
*Twelve Angry Men* and *Charade.*
11. Being the only person in a grad class who has seen ....
12. Being the only person in an undergrad class who isn't sure whether Justin
Bieber is a singer or stand-up comedian.
13. Being the only person in an undergrad class who can't stand poutine.
14. Paying a young man with a plough to shovel my walkways and driveway.
15. Allowing myself only one piece of kirschtorte for dessert.
16. Realizing that the older I get, the less patience I have for rabid
post-structuralist, post-modern, post-colonial, psychoanalytic
deconstructionist, you're-complicit-in-racism-because-you're
white-and-thus-privileged, "scholarship."
17. Realizing, as a reviewer, that journal editors send me the crap they don't
want to see published in their journals because they know I have no patience
for ....
18. Finding that someone has replaced all my belts with shorter look-alikes.
(What kind of loonie would ....??)
19. Feeling more comfortable driving my Volvo at 40k per hour rather than 140k.
20. Believing that a smartboard is a self-cleaning blackboard but thinking I
may
be wrong about that, and maybe my Education students don't wish to correct me
... (nah, can't be.)
21. Having a landline telephone and not owning a cell phone.
22. Wondering why people snicker when I proudly show them my commodore 64.
23. Finding out that my college sweetheart, who was my age at the time, is now
58 yrs old and a very successful plastic surgeon with her own clinic in Carmel,
California. (I knew I should have developed an interest in trosopholo (sp?)
flies rather than Hegel.)
There, that does feel a might better. Good idea, David.
Happy Holidays.
Walter O.
Quoting David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>:
>
> On Dec 21, 2012, at 9:12 PM, John Wager wrote:
> >
> > Having said all of that, I must say I'm impressed by quite a few British
> books being written for a general public in which fairly dry subjects are
> written about in intelligent and engaging ways.
> >
> > But these seem to all be written by slightly more senior faculty, whose
> reputations with jargon is already well-established. Heaven forbid someone
> attempt a popular book before one's reputation is made in "serious" journals
> or books.
> >
> > In my own case, what drew me to my advisor for the dissertation was partly
> the "style" of his own writing; it was elegant and effective. He
> actually despised the "jargonistic" approach to philosophy, so much so that
> he had stopped attending APA meetings, which also meant he was of very little
> use to me in making connections for my first job. Ah, well.
> >
> >
>
> Thanks to John. These are issues which bother me, also folk on this list,
> all of whom seem united on what becomes more and more an old-fashioned issue:
> clarity. We, academics who are still in harness, sit through meetings in
> which the language and the declared goal seem to diverge, listen to
> presentations that are stuffed with blither; we agree that we will declare
> objectives and measure with rubrics and (personal note) I wonder whether
> there is still room for a clear sentence or two. It is as if we are all lost
> on a ring road somewhere in France and the signpost says "Toutes Directions"
> and somehow we think that's fine and we are getting somewhere. If you want
> to feel old, bring Orwell's name up, or Graves' "Reader Over Your Shoulder."
>
> What else makes you people feel the years passing?
>
> Grump away. 'tis the season.
>
> David Ritchie,
> ignoring the Mayans, hoping to publish something good soon from
> Portland, Oregon
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