I must begin by noting that I am taking yet another English department class, led by yet more outstanding faculty (two of them, in this instance). I'm really starting to think Hamline should just shut down the other inferior departments and let the English faculty take over the whole school. Seriously. Or lend them to some of the loser departments. Or have them lead a seminar for the other faculty on How Not To Be Total Losers. Something.
However, I still managed to hear many words that drive me INSANE. And then I did biology homework tonight, and read many many many more words that I don't care to have as part of my vocabulary. And then there's German. So, in no particular order, and all a-jumble, are my least favorite words of today:
1. hegemony
2. pancreatic juice
3. intentionality
4. Golgi apparatus
5. knauserig
6. efficacy
7. duodenum
8. cecum
9. Foucault
10. die Kommilitonin
7 comments:
Dang. Did you really do Golgi apparatus on the first day???
I thought this was going to be Biology's Greatest Hits, not Obscure and Somewhat Disgusting Features of Our Innards.
That textbook photo of Nicole Kidman as an example of a protein was kind of misleading, I guess.
Sorry.
Also, I'd like to ask for a re-consideration of "intentionality." We love that word in my world. We often use it in a non-ironic way to describe mindful behavior change.
PS - I can talk this way alllllllllll day long.
Let's see how long it is before you add:
- dichotomy
- mediation
- islets of Langerhans
- Derridian
- Vergangenheitsbewältigung
That last one was the subject of my (alas unfinished) doctoral thesis...
I'm with you on "hegemony."
I also dislike "hermeneutics."
Senior year's a bitch, I guess.
We spent a thoroughly sleep inducing morning in the semi-dark Fine Arts Center listening to a lecture on bullying. Three hours defining the problem (umm, we're teachers, we know what the problem is) and only 20 minutes of what to do (which was, essentially, to buy her company's bullying program). Only one thing kept my mind off sketching sets for my fall play production:
The presenter turned "giving consequences to" into a more compact "consequencing."
As in: "If you see a bully putting a victim's feet through a meet grinder, you must consequence the bully."
I usually enjoy novel uses of language, but isn't that too, too language-lazy?
PS: I am considering a major scrim purchase -- who has worked with sharkstooth and can answer a few questions??? (In retrospect, the morning was useful after all.)
Of course, I meant "meat" grinder.
I wonder what a "meet grinder" could be?
To Ann: I'm pretty sure a "meet grinder" is a dance move.
I agree that using "consequence" as a verb is ridiculously lazy, but then I also roll my eyes at the indiscriminate use of "giving consequences" to replace "punishment", in general. (Yes, I understand that giving consequences is a better, more logical category of punishment. But often, there is no logical "consequence" of a particular misdeed, so we're really just giving a punishment and calling it a nicer-sounding word.)
To Scott/Eric M: I LIKE "hegemony", but mostly because in 2003, in the height of America's anti-French hysteria, some U.S. journal toured France, interviewing people about why they hate Americans. He couldn't find anyone who actually hated Americans. The closest he came was a young couple on a beach, who didn't answer him for a long time and kept whispering to each other. He thought they didn't understand English very well, so he kept trying to rephrase his question into simpler terms. Finally, they looked at him and said, "We dislike American hegemony." When he asked if there was anything that they DID like about America, they sadly shook their heads no. Then, as he started to walk away, they yelled after him: "Wait! Pancakes! We like pancakes!" (Now do you understand why I love my adopted country so much?!)
To Scott/Deb: how do you feel about my newly invented phrase "intentionally knick-knacky" (used to describe stores such as Bibelot or Three Rooms at Galleria), as it may or may not relate to "intentionality"?
My new pet peeve phrase is "price point". Either "price", "price range", or "price level" can adequately describe the concept; the invention of a new term was pure jargon.
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