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Back in the trenches...
Jan. 24th, 2005 11:32 amThe highlight of the first week of class was having my Brit Lit professor mention that his class had come back into the list of required classes for a degree plan in English (the thought that classes can drop out and rejoin the way I did was almost touching, in its own way,) and having him describe The Faerie Queen and Paradise Lost as "the thirty-pound bran muffins" of the reading list.
Lowlight? That would be the student in my Structure Of Modern English class whom I have been referring to as "AB" in my notes from the class.
What does "AB" mean, you either ask, or don't, but expect me to tell you anyway? It's not his blood type, but rather an abbreviated form of "Asshole Boy." (As a fan of the Legion Of Superheroes, I must confess to a certain nostalgic love of their goofy-assed naming convention of joining a single-word description of their member's powers to one descriptive of their sex. And if this guy has a super-power, it's to aggravate people into wanting to throttle him.)
In our first class session, he relentlessly argued with the professor over the definition of "syntax" used in our text. The fact that the definition he was arguing against and the one used in the text's glossary didn't actually match did not deter him; he knew what the text's author was saying, and he refused to accept its validity one damn bit. There were two reasons why this annoyed the hell out of me: Firstly, it changed the class from Structure Of Modern English into He Hates Pinkerton's Definition Of Syntax, and B: The professor told us that she wasn't planning on keeping us for the entire class session, since it was the first class and she just wanted to go over the syllabus and a few basics. So Asshole Boy's jihad against what he thought Pinkerton's definition of "syntax" was caused us all to be in class about 5 minutes longer than we would have otherwise.
I missed Friday's class, due to not leaving home early enough to find a parking spot until a few minutes after class started, so I cannot report exactly what it was he got off on a rant about then. But today, he took offense at being told what to think about a couple of definitions that the professor gave us. She was talking about the difference between spoken and written languages, and how in spoken English, certain conventions (such as double-negatives) are acceptible within particular dialects, but unacceptible in formal written English.
Prescriptivists, she told us, are those who dictate to others what is and is not acceptible usage. They're the ones that are compiling dictionaries, thesaures, and the like. Descriptivists, on the other termination of one's limb, are those who compile a language's rules, so that people can learn what they are.
So Asshole Boy breaks in to tell us all how the Descriptivists are actually dictating rules, too.
I do not agree with this, as you may have guessed from how I talk about this guy (and the fact that I wrote down "AB rides again" in my notes when he did it.) To me (and I tried pointing this out to him during my brief involvement in the post-class argument he had with the professor,) the Descriptivists are just making a list of the rules that others have made, while the Prescriptivists are the ones actually making the rules. It's the same difference between the Texas Legislature and the reporters in Austin telling us what laws they've passed.
He wasn't having any of that, either.
I'll probably keep reporting on what he does each day, if only so that the venting will help preserve my sanity against the corrosive force he currently represents. Wish me luck in not snapping sometime around the end of March, and throwing things at him.
Lowlight? That would be the student in my Structure Of Modern English class whom I have been referring to as "AB" in my notes from the class.
What does "AB" mean, you either ask, or don't, but expect me to tell you anyway? It's not his blood type, but rather an abbreviated form of "Asshole Boy." (As a fan of the Legion Of Superheroes, I must confess to a certain nostalgic love of their goofy-assed naming convention of joining a single-word description of their member's powers to one descriptive of their sex. And if this guy has a super-power, it's to aggravate people into wanting to throttle him.)
In our first class session, he relentlessly argued with the professor over the definition of "syntax" used in our text. The fact that the definition he was arguing against and the one used in the text's glossary didn't actually match did not deter him; he knew what the text's author was saying, and he refused to accept its validity one damn bit. There were two reasons why this annoyed the hell out of me: Firstly, it changed the class from Structure Of Modern English into He Hates Pinkerton's Definition Of Syntax, and B: The professor told us that she wasn't planning on keeping us for the entire class session, since it was the first class and she just wanted to go over the syllabus and a few basics. So Asshole Boy's jihad against what he thought Pinkerton's definition of "syntax" was caused us all to be in class about 5 minutes longer than we would have otherwise.
I missed Friday's class, due to not leaving home early enough to find a parking spot until a few minutes after class started, so I cannot report exactly what it was he got off on a rant about then. But today, he took offense at being told what to think about a couple of definitions that the professor gave us. She was talking about the difference between spoken and written languages, and how in spoken English, certain conventions (such as double-negatives) are acceptible within particular dialects, but unacceptible in formal written English.
Prescriptivists, she told us, are those who dictate to others what is and is not acceptible usage. They're the ones that are compiling dictionaries, thesaures, and the like. Descriptivists, on the other termination of one's limb, are those who compile a language's rules, so that people can learn what they are.
So Asshole Boy breaks in to tell us all how the Descriptivists are actually dictating rules, too.
I do not agree with this, as you may have guessed from how I talk about this guy (and the fact that I wrote down "AB rides again" in my notes when he did it.) To me (and I tried pointing this out to him during my brief involvement in the post-class argument he had with the professor,) the Descriptivists are just making a list of the rules that others have made, while the Prescriptivists are the ones actually making the rules. It's the same difference between the Texas Legislature and the reporters in Austin telling us what laws they've passed.
He wasn't having any of that, either.
I'll probably keep reporting on what he does each day, if only so that the venting will help preserve my sanity against the corrosive force he currently represents. Wish me luck in not snapping sometime around the end of March, and throwing things at him.
