Fascinating, challenging, frustrating, disheartening, encouraging: the 1931 Page-Barbour Lectures at the University of Virginia, compiled into The Theory of Education in the United States, by Albert Jay Nock. A significant read, IMO. My library? Two electronic formats and paperback. Read this, then Ortega’s Revolt of the Masses. The two seem to cover most of the bases in revealing why our society is so muddled. And often (appears to be?) sinking.
“Si vis pacem, para bellum”
(Yeh, yeh, STOLEN and altered to fit reality. So there.)
Merit Should Be the ONLY Standard
College admissions.
Self-anointed “elites” are above the law, don’t you know? After all, the Constitution only applies if they agree with it. Otherwise, it’s just dead words, you know? #gagamaggot
Yeh, 14th Amendment guarantees of equal protection under the law are apparently not recognized by “elite” universities that are nevertheless quite willing to accept federal funds to continue to thumb their collective noses at the Constitution.
There is NOTHING—absolutely NOTHING—good, ethical, virtuous, or societally healthy about “affirmative action.”
OTOH, while not necessarily unlawful, the “good old boy”/nepotistic admissions network is also repugnant. I recall the day when my mom, who was working in the high school supervisors’ offices (large district; half a million pop at the time) came home with an offer from one of the supervisors to gain me admission to an Ivy League school, complete with scholarship aid. I found it. . . distasteful that he would pull strings to get me “in.”
Glad I rejected the offer.
*grumble-grumble-gripe-complain* #5,386
“Aight” is the stupid version of “alright,” WHICH IS ALSO NOT A WORD! (Although, to be fair, “alright” is used by a very slightly less stupid class of persons.)
That is all. For now.
“Against Stupidity. . . “
“. . .the gods themselves contend in vain.” – Schiller,
- Maid of Orleans.
A frequent subliterate “Dunning-Krugerand” ploy when confronted with an argument they cannot counter is to accuse their interlocutor of throwing up incoherent word salad found by (virtually?) thumbing through a thesaurus and picking “big words” to confuse the issue. Of course, all that means is that the subliterate “Dunning-Krugerand” can’t comprehend clear, plain English that is composed of words outside his pathetically small vocabulary. It also means that the subliterate “Dunning-Krugerand” (probably) cannot conceive of an expanded vocabulary that does not issue from abusing a thesaurus.
Those of use who grew up reading dictionaries for fun just laugh. Then we may, if sufficiently provoked, raucously mock them. Without end, until they slink away dragging their lobotomized Bonobo Chimpanzee ghost writer with them.
Writing Tip #4,957
Eschew obscurantism, redundancy, and prolixity. That is, avoid arcane, esoteric, recondite, or obscure expressions; avoid undue repetition, reiteration, and duplication-reduplication of statements, and, above all, refrain from extreme, inordinate, unbridled, unchecked, and exorbitant wordiness.
YW.
Addendum: dictionaries are your friend. Thesauruses? not so much.
Innumeracy May Be a Worse Problem than Illiteracy, or even A-literacy
Order of function error: does not compute! *heh*
Ran into someone who thought πr² meant (πr)². No, it’s π(r²). (πr)² yields a SUBSTANTIALLY different number.
Example: where r = 2: (3.14159 x 2)² = 39.4783509124, whereas 3.14159 x 4 [that is, r²] = 12.56636. That area is less than ⅓ of the incorrect computation.
Correct math can help define and comprehend the material world. Innumerates are easy prey for professional liars (like, say, politicians and mass MEdia Hivemind Podpeople).
Book Him, Danno
Went to a Trivial Pursuit party, oh, about 40 years ago, held at the home of a guy who owned a moving company. OK, that’s trivializing his company. What he moved was HOUSES (was fun being a minor part of the move when he moved some Army barracks that had been declared surplus).
What impressed me most about the evening was not how trivial the Trivial Pursuit play was but the guy’s library. It was a mezzanine floor that encompassed three sides of the great room where we played our mini single-elimination tournament. I do not recall anything else about the house, but that library has featured in more than a few of my dreams over the years since. . .
See Inigo Montoya: YKUTW. . .
Just saw someone use “belie” to mean “confirm.” That’s like Dhimmicraps “defending democracy” by promoting vote fraud.
Some “Writers” Should ONLY “Write” Audiobooks
And even then, maybe not. Case in point *heh* —
“Case and point, the roaring metal stallion balanced on two shining wheels that bared down on him. . .”
Case IN point and bore. (Note on the conjugation of “to bear”)
Some “writers” obviously failed Remedial English and then had their “work” reviewed by Bonobo Chimpanzees.