Where Mute Memories Start Talking

It is only fair to warn you that I care about the English language. I come from a grammatically conservative family. If as a child I had done something terrible or committed some serious crime, my family would have been distraught but they would have stuck by me. They would have hired a lawyer for me, come to my trial, visited me in juvenile. But if I split an infinitive or dangled a participle in public, I was not to come home. So please, humor me. Stop writing like crap.

And yes, there will indeed be several grammatical errors and violations of MLA format in this post. Get over it, it’s a blog.

I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for everyone to avoid jargon, be it social scientific, postmodern, or any other. “Lisible” is a lousy word, and “discourse” is not much better. “Site of contestation” is terrible writing. Language should be accessible to any interested lay person, especially one who needs to submit a peer review of your term paper to a TA. Nobody is impressed by a lot of big words that are hard to understand.

Whoever came up with the concept of Peer Review needs to be paraded naked through the streets of every city in Thailand for people to spit on, then coated with honey and staked down over an anthill. Peer reviews don’t help; they frustrate. Nobody likes reading other papers (especially ones containing words like “draconian” and “impactness”), and nobody ever makes the changes suggested by peers. If someone really really wants a revision, the paper is going to the TA.

Back to ranting and complaining: English is not, and never will be, a diacritical language. Slashes, dashes, and parentheses within words are abnormal. Examples: apple(s), and/or. English is an Anglo-Saxon language which has its origins in old Germanic barbarian tribes. What does this mean? It means that all pure English was originally intended to be SHOUTED. Whenever possible, use simple words with broad vowels and hard consonants. When that fails, succumb to the Latin rooted words.

One of the all-time greatest indignations of English is a fairly recent development. He or she, and she or he, is quietly being replaced by this: s/he. Tell me, how do you SHOUT “s/he”? “sssHEEH”?

Another example I see very often is this: “race,” class, and gender- also known as The Holy Trinity of left-wing social science. Apparently Sociologists enjoy putting “race” in quotes to make a statement inferring that race is merely a social construction which does not exist in scientific form. If that’s the case, they should put “class” in quotes too, since it’s a social construction. “Sociology” should be in quotes as well, not only because it’s a useless pseudo-science, but also because it too is a social construction. As a matter of fact, the comma should be in quotes. Stay true to your word.

As is probably evident from that last paragraph”,” I believe that several academic disciplines are currently trashing the press, which is a weird way of saying that they’re teaching people to write like shit. Sadly, Psychology is likely one of these disciplines, as is evident from the stuff you’re reading right now. Compare it to some of my earlier posts. This is garbage, stop reading it. It will only get worse from here. That aside, the Sciences and the Pseudo-Sciences (Sociology) will teach you to write blunt, jargon-filled masterpieces which utilize perfect execution of APA citation regulations.

Maybe I just offended someone by calling Sociology a pseudo-science. If so, I’m glad. If anyone is reading this (haHA) who also happens to be debating over what field of study to pursue in college, do not even consider Sociology- because it’s a joke. It should be renamed lolSociologyjk. Sociologists need to start using the C. Wright Mills questions to analyze the pointlessness of their own existence instead of obsessing over the status of impersonalized groups.

Well, that felt awesome. Until next time, keep it real. Be thoughtful, be clever, but don’t be cute.

lol almost forgot… this happened today:

Wednesday May 9th, 2007
Main Campus Path

(in an extremely annoying matter-of-fact tone) “Did YOU know that OUR university is producing NUCLEAR WEAPONS?!?”
(me) “Actually they aren’t; they’re contributing to the research and development of nuclear technology in general”
“That’s just what they want you to think. They’re lying.”
“How do you know?”
“Are you kidding me?!? It’s a well-known fact!”
“Actually… it’s not. There are about 500 people out of several million who suspect that nuclear weapons are being manufactured on this campus”
“I can’t believe how ignorant you’re being!”
“I can’t believe that you haven’t been able to find something better to do with your life”
“As a matter of fact, I find this highly important…”
“I know, hence I mock you”
“…and I will be participating in the tent city and hunger strike next week. The Regents don’t care about us!”
“So let me get this straight… you guys hate the University of California and the Regents now? Did you run out of organizations to protest or something?”
“You’re a Conservative, aren’t you?”
“Amongst a multitude of insane liberals. Yes.”
“HAHA OH MY GOD YOU MAKE ME LAUGH! I can’t believe you just ASSUMED that I’m a liberal! I’m not affiliated with any party and refuse to label myself as “left wing”, “liberal”, or any construct of the…”
“Alright alright I’ve heard enough. First of all, I haven’t called you anything yet. But right now I am going to. You’re one of those liberals who are so liberal that they refuse to call themselves liberals. Goodbye lefty.”
“You are so hopeless! Guess I won’t be seeing you at the rally today or the hunger strike next week.”
“NOPE. And I hope you all starve. Bye”

Just fyi- I am not making these up. Obviously I don’t remember the exact conversation word for word, but what you read is pretty darn close to what was actually said. I only recently started attempting to own the sidewalk solicitors, but I’m getting better at it every day and am starting to think it’s extremely fun and entertaining. I’m not afraid anymore! I will admit there have been a few times where they’ve been able to hold their ground, but those don’t need to go on my blog. Also, the only defense they usually have is quoting strange websites or statistics that they claim to have found on CNN.