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LIBER EDUCATION

I read journalist Tom Wolfe's lengthy novel I am Charlotte Simmons, although I prefer his essays and books such as From Bauhaus to Our House and The Painted Word. I'm not reviewing Charlotte Simmons; you can find reviews and a substantial bio of Wolfe at Amazon. But I do want to quote from a conversation in the novel where Charlotte explains to a basketball player what a liberal education means (p. 182) (ignore Charlotte's habit of making a question out of all her sentences):

[Liberal is] from Latin.... In Latin, liber means free? It also means book.... Anyway, the Romans had slaves from all over the world, and some of the slaves were very bright, like the Greeks. The Romans would let the slaves get educated in all sorts of practical subjects, like math, like engineering so they could build things, like music so they could be entertainers? But only Roman citizens, the free people? ~ liber? ~ could take things like rhetoric and literature and history and theology and philosophy? Because they were the arts of persuasion ~ and they didn't want the slaves to learn how to present arguments that might inspire them to unite and rise up or something?

One of the Click and Clack brothers on NPR's Car Talk jokes about art history majors ~ but now his daughter majors in art history (like one of my sons). I make fun of myself for having majored in English. These are not the big money-makers. It would have been more practical to go to trade school (i.e. get a degree in computer science). Nowadays, the most prestigious liberal arts majors are those that combine the liberal arts with the ability to make money, like law.

A further gloss on "liberal" for da yutes: If you read anything published earlier than the 1960s, you'll find that the word meant something rather different than it does today.

ON THE NIGHT STAND

Also, on recommendation by reader Fresh, I'm reading Slam Dunks and No-Brainers by Leslie Savan, an interesting and intelligent book about what she calls "pop language" (not to be confused with slang). She writes, "...the first obligation of pop language is not to help us plumb life's mysteries but to establish that you recognize and can characterize [slam dunk] any pre-characterized [no-brainer] thing or situation." That is, pop language requires almost no thought.

EVERLY ENORMITY

In a TV documentary about the Everly Brothers: "... the enormity of their destiny." Well, they've had their problems but it wasn't all that bad. I don't know if there's any hope left for the word "enormity", which means "that which is an exceeding offense against order, right, or decency; an atrocious crime; flagitious villainy; an atrocity". It doesn't mean "largeness" but because it resembles "enormous" people constantly misuse it. (Go look up "flagitious".)

IT WAS DUN TO WHO?

Bill R. says he's technical editor for a group of 200 technical engineers, who use the passive voice all the time. Bill wrote:

I tend to refer to this as the "bureaucratic passive." My dissertation advisor wrote the official history of the space shuttle program under contract to NASA. He observed that, thanks to such constructions, it was literally impossible to determine who approved the CHALLENGER launch.

PS ~ and yes, this is literally literally.

Bill also said regarding U-trou:

SEALs consider u-trou to be sissy. In 1978, one of my wardroom mates on the good ship William V. Pratt was a former SEAL. He joined up with some of his old SEAL buddies at the chiefs' club in Rodman (Panama Canal Zone). They discovered that he had taken to wearing underwear and removed it, by pulling it up over his head.

How can you do that? Sounds painful.

NOTHING IS EASIER TO SPELL

You've probably heard about the atheist Michael Newdow who's filed lawsuits objecting to his daughter's having to say "God" in the pledge of allegiance at school (though her mother, who has custody, is not an atheist). Now he wants the word "God" removed from U.S. money and other government issue. But here's a thought: If an atheist is an active believer in nothing, that nothing would be represented by ~ nothing. There's as much or more blank space, or space that does not contain words or symbols, on money etc. as there is space with religious references ("In God We Trust"). Therefore, the atheists are already represented everywhere you see nothing. I don't object to their nothingness if they'll leave other people's stuff alone.

DEFILING MEDICINE

The notorious Nigerian scam letters now appear to be sent from all sorts of countries, with new stories. The originals always had to do with enormous sums of money orphaned by political disaster. Now people are dying and want to leave fortunes to charities, via me. How trusting they are. (By the way, did you know the term "con" comes from "confidence game" in which the con man convinces you that he has confidence in you, not the other way around?) Here's the opening of a recent e-mail:

My name is JURGEN STERK, a Swedish national I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer. It has defiled all forms of medical treatment...

IT IS TO LAUGH

Jan G. wrote about a few risible words:

I recently heard this statement on a news broadcast about the aftermath of a tornado..."His car was completely destroyed." The word "destroyed" sounds pretty complete to me. I guess there is a state of being partially destroyed, is this a thing correct to say? Oh, the complexities of our language.

I remember in art college having to take some "academics." This was the way many teachers described the classes not art related, but required in order to graduate.

Speaking of "academics," I remember taking a health class where the professor was explaining symptoms of diseases. I don't remember the name of the particular disease he was describing when he said, "The symptom of this disease is sudden death." The reaction to this statement was laughter and most of the class immediately clutching their necks, gasping, "Oh my God, I think I have it!" while pretending to die where they sat. Some of the more highly dramatic went so far as to topple from their chairs. I was not among those who toppled. Believe that and you could own a section of the Brooklyn Bridge...

1. The root of destroy/destruction is the same as that of construct, and since something can be partly built, I guess it can be partly unbuilt too. Destroyed is not an absolute such as perfect.

2. Since academics also means a member of a university, students are also required to take the professors ~ the word take is the key. Those little old Anglo-Saxon words (or in this case, some specie of Norse) say so much: lay hold of, yield to, carry, swallow ... go to www.dict.org and type in take.

3. I wish I'd been there when Jan toppled from her chair.

WALTZING TILDE

Remember our Spanish friend the tilde, which makes a sinner into a senor? It's on the key furthest to the left of your number keys, when you shift. Herb wrote:

So all these years I've been singing Waltzing Matilde when it should have been pronounced Waltzing Ma-Nyee! That's so humiliating. But wait, all the others were drunk, anyway, and singing the same thing.

Silly Herb. But wait, Fred says this describes his experience of life in general.

COREX CORNER

Dan E. corrected something I wrote, and rather than rehash my mistake, I'll do what the newspapers do and try to avoid further confusion by printing only the correction. "Incredulous" does not mean the same as "incredible" but it also does not mean "credulous". I knew that. That's what I get for working past my bedtime. Thanks, Dan.

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