I’m often struck by how my students focus on endings—“what happens in the end?”, “where is this story going?” or, more autobiographically, “I can’t wait ‘til high school’s over and I go to college!”
In short, we’re a teleological bunch, racing towards our finish lines frenetically.
In my mind, beginnings are often more interesting, especially literary ones.
Somewhere between a coercive language immersion program, like Orwellian Newspeak (except it’s not known at all for its concision), and some odd naturalistic, linguistic emergence, like Nicaraguan deaf children signing their own language (except it’s much more obtrusive), lies academese, that esoteric idiom known only to that precious few meisters and apprentices that occupy the ivory tower of academia.
Now, as someone who is prefers the abstruse to the mundane, I hesitate to cast aspersions on my adoptive mother tongue, academese, yet, even the most foppish don has his limits.
How shocking the vivid argot of young people today! Imagine our befuddlement when recently accosted by the indelicate language of the street corner in what was unfolding as an otherwise proper conversation with one of our well-bred and punctilious students. Though this would not be the first time we have been waylaid by the urban patois of our young charges, we were, nevertheless, sufficiently bemused that we paused to consider how we might intervene so as to take full advantage of the teachable moment that had presented itself. Here, after all, was one of our ambitious young students in the midst of a conversation about his summer employment with his SAT/ACT Grammar, Reading, and Essay instructor. As we have stated on previous occasions, our effort to expand the active vocabulary of America’s youth by shepherding them away from the slippery slopes of indolent locution is part and parcel of our ongoing quest to elevate and instruct these lexically challenged youths in the more subtle expressions found in the educated citizen’s vocabulary. Here is the expression that so took us aback:
In working with young people, we often overhear the colorful patois of their generation. Though we are occasionally flummoxed by their exotic teen argot, we are sometimes nimble enough to discern and exploit such teachable moments when they present themselves. As part of our ongoing mission to encourage our students to expand their active vocabularies by renouncing their slothful locutions and supplanting them with the more nuanced phrasings afforded by sophisticated diction, we offer the following example from a conversation we recently overheard.
“My ACT tutor is one of the most brilliant educators I have ever met, but, when I saw him in the park the other day playing basketball, I realized that he’s really a ‘wack buster.’”
If there’s an allegiance we pledge at Academic Approach—before political party, nation, or even deity—it’s to language, specifically the power of logic and rhetoric.
So perhaps with a touch of autumnal, academic nostalgia (i.e., fond thoughts of college freshmen cultivating a new knowledge of ancient texts) or a bit of current resentment against those Olympic judges who snubbed Chicago for Rio, our thoughts turn toward Athens—not for games, but for knowledge. Specifically, I’m thinking of the art of rhetoric, and one of my favorite rhetorical techniques, anaphora.
Why are you not scoring in the 30s on the ACT English section? Inexcusable! I declare that the Gods of Standardized Testing — Erudition and Neuroses — have given high school mortals a gift when it included the English section on the ACT. Yes, a gift. It is the first section, and it is the easiest section (and also arguably the most important college readiness skill). It is based on rules you can memorize, and it’s as predictable as a series on the CW. So brace yourselves for another exclamatory tirade from the Vehement Tutor (that’s me) as I remind you of timeless tips on the English section that never fail.
Like many online pontificators, I too have a gripe with professional athletes.
Does it have to do with their habitual flirtations with the law? No – I jaywalk all the time and am pretty sure the Constitution of this fine country defends our right to walk across the street whenever we please.
Does it have to do with the fact that highly paid athletes get away with a lot of things you and I cannot get away with? No – if I could get away with driving my Ferrari (if I had one) down the highway at 120 mph without fear of significant legal retribution, I’d do it every day of the week.
Does it have to do with the fact that they are bigger, faster, and have more money than I do? No – I prefer to be deceptively small, slow, and frugal.
No, my hang up is bigger than that…and quite frankly more important.
The only thing that tops an octopus tripping the light fantastic across the ocean floor is—let’s face it—a shrimp on a treadmill. This physically fit shrimp not only inspired the Academic Approach staff to hit the gym, but it also caused us to ask whether all shrimp were in such excellent cardiovascular health? . . .Or did we mean all shrimps?
In a current advertisement for Juvederm, an injectable gel that treats wrinkles, we receive a beauty lesson and a punctuation tutorial all in one. The ad starts out innocently enough with the line “So smooth and natural, everyone will notice (but no one will know).” While this sentence has issues with ambiguity, its parentheses are employed beautifully. “But no one will know” is set off artfully from the rest of the sentence with parentheses, as opposed to a mere comma or a dash, as a means of deemphasizing the phrase, implying that it is something to be whispered. But what, may I ask, is going on in the rest of the ad?
We stand humbled in the presence of this most heavenly grammar critique. Hats off to The Soup!