The reintegration of syntactical certainty
As is probably true at any university, the one where I teach has more than a few faculty who think they are the smartest people in the room and want to make sure you know it.
Many years ago, I taught a writing course overseen by, but not part of, the English department, and I was at a year-end meeting of everyone who taught the course. During the discussion, one of the English department profs made a suggestion, to which another English prof immediately responded, "Why Joe, that's argumentum ad absurdum!"
Sadly, I didn't know enough Latin to come up with the appropriate retort, and besides, I'm not sure if there's a Latin translation of "you little punk-ass bitch."
Anyway: I later learned that anyone can sound like an academic, thanks to The Virtual Academic website: (Too much fun). The site description says, "The Virtual Academic generates random sentences from a list of phrases common in many academic fields." The random sentences are funnier than hell-they sound serious but actually say nothing at all.
I used the site just a few minutes ago, when I unsubscribed to email solicitations from a company that wants me to adopt their expensive textbooks for a course. Usually, when I unsubscribe from these sites, they ask why I'm doing so. Saying something like "Your books are way overpriced" doesn't sound academic enough, so I always consult The Virtual Academic to come up with a proper response-something like this, which I have tweaked so it sounds like a response to the question:
"Your textbook's apparently harmless jeu d'esprit concerning the relationship between the exploitation of normative value(s) and the linguistic construction of (self)referentiality will meet with a cool reception from my students."
Just goes to show that with a little help, this ex-newspaper guy (and you, too!) can sling academic bullshit with the best of them.