Hello, I'm here, I'm living in the walls
I'm tentatively making my entries publicly visible again, but if certain professors of biology show signs of stalking me again, I shall have to go back to my hidden ways. XD
So, I had a bit of a quibble with my college comp professor today... ahem.
Our 2nd essay was a descriptive essay, though her guidelines are very, very confining, with each paragraph's contents laid out for us by her. We had to describe a 'dwelling' to which we have a strong emotional attachment. We also, for some reason, had to include a list of ten to fifteen other dwellings we 'could have written about but didn't.' Well, who the hell has that many? After a dull list of 'Zaaly's house, my grandparents' house, my other grandparents' house,' and so forth, I got to feeling obnoxious and slapped 'the Waffle House' on the end.
For the essay itself, I'll admit... I totally made up a place. Utter fabrication. Colour me horrible. It turned out alright, though.
I had a dream that I got it back and got an F, and that she'd written that it was 'uninteresting.' (I lol'd)
I actually did get it back today, and I got an A (w00t), but I found some of her notes very annoying. Now, it's one thing to mark me down a bit for forgetting a comma, but really now. First, she insisted that 'thusly' is not a word and was THUSLY inappropriate. Okay, fine. I knew she wouldn't like that word.
She also didn't like a bit (and I do mean one sentence) where I used a bit of sarcasm, because, as she said earlier, college writing must be without humor! I told her that I think a good writer uses subtle humor where it works, and does not use it where it doesn't work. She didn't agree, but okay. Sure. I'll go with humorless for her class.
But then came what really annoyed me. At one point I wrote 'the walls are bare save for a few posters'. She said she didn't think my peers would understand 'save' in that context. I disagreed, and she stopped a girl on her way out of the room and asked her if she was familiar with that usage. The girl said no. I asked the girl if she read much. The girl replied that no, she does not like reading. I said, "Well, there you go."
She said then that I should write with words that my peers will know.
Going into full-on rant mode, I told her that I was sorry if it sounded snobby, but that I am not writing for my peers in this class, but for her, and for people who read on the same level that I do, and that furthermore I think that if students' vocabularies are that small, we SHOULD use words and phrases like that and expand their knowledge instead of dumbing ourselves down and catering to their small vocabularies. The English language is full of wonderful expressions and words that our generation is totally ignoring in favor of simplistic speech, and not teaching them how to use the language to its full extent is NOT helping them. I told her that I think a good reader, even if he didn't know that word or phrase, would be able to deduce its meaning from the context
She said, "There's a passage in your textbook you should read..." and flipped to it, and I looked.
It said, paraphrasing a bit, "Inflated writing: These are words and phrases used by a writer to sound educated or self-important."
I looked at her and said, "...are you saying that I am being a SNOB by using words that my classmates don't know?"
Okay, maybe I WAS being a little snobby at this point, but I still don't appreciate HER insinuating that.
She was really quiet for a moment like she had no idea what to say, and then said "...nn-o..."
She also didn't really like that I used the word 'puce' to describe the colour of the carpeting. "It's a good word," she said, "But I don't think one person in this class would know what it means, and I consider this class above average."
I said, "Then even if they're smart, they are NOT well-read." I'll admit, that one WAS pretty snobby, but I was getting annoyed.
She said she could see my point, but said, essentially, that I write unusually and with an archaic vocabulary and that I need to use simpler words in the future. I left feeling like I hadn't accomplished much at all, but it did feel good to say all of that. Sometimes I CAN be assertive, and it's kind of fun. XD
But really... am I snobby? Do I sound self-important? Please tell me honestly. D: I never thought any of these words or expressions were terribly rare, I would never classify 'save for' as a colloquialism, and I do not think that someone in a college writing class should be expected to dumb their writing down for peers who aren't going to be reading one's essay at all! If that's snobby, than I guess I'm snobby.
I've used the word 'snobby' a lot in this entry and it doesn't really look like a word any more.
Oh, and she didn't even comment on the Waffle House being on my list. I am disappoint.
So, I had a bit of a quibble with my college comp professor today... ahem.
Our 2nd essay was a descriptive essay, though her guidelines are very, very confining, with each paragraph's contents laid out for us by her. We had to describe a 'dwelling' to which we have a strong emotional attachment. We also, for some reason, had to include a list of ten to fifteen other dwellings we 'could have written about but didn't.' Well, who the hell has that many? After a dull list of 'Zaaly's house, my grandparents' house, my other grandparents' house,' and so forth, I got to feeling obnoxious and slapped 'the Waffle House' on the end.
For the essay itself, I'll admit... I totally made up a place. Utter fabrication. Colour me horrible. It turned out alright, though.
I had a dream that I got it back and got an F, and that she'd written that it was 'uninteresting.' (I lol'd)
I actually did get it back today, and I got an A (w00t), but I found some of her notes very annoying. Now, it's one thing to mark me down a bit for forgetting a comma, but really now. First, she insisted that 'thusly' is not a word and was THUSLY inappropriate. Okay, fine. I knew she wouldn't like that word.
She also didn't like a bit (and I do mean one sentence) where I used a bit of sarcasm, because, as she said earlier, college writing must be without humor! I told her that I think a good writer uses subtle humor where it works, and does not use it where it doesn't work. She didn't agree, but okay. Sure. I'll go with humorless for her class.
But then came what really annoyed me. At one point I wrote 'the walls are bare save for a few posters'. She said she didn't think my peers would understand 'save' in that context. I disagreed, and she stopped a girl on her way out of the room and asked her if she was familiar with that usage. The girl said no. I asked the girl if she read much. The girl replied that no, she does not like reading. I said, "Well, there you go."
She said then that I should write with words that my peers will know.
Going into full-on rant mode, I told her that I was sorry if it sounded snobby, but that I am not writing for my peers in this class, but for her, and for people who read on the same level that I do, and that furthermore I think that if students' vocabularies are that small, we SHOULD use words and phrases like that and expand their knowledge instead of dumbing ourselves down and catering to their small vocabularies. The English language is full of wonderful expressions and words that our generation is totally ignoring in favor of simplistic speech, and not teaching them how to use the language to its full extent is NOT helping them. I told her that I think a good reader, even if he didn't know that word or phrase, would be able to deduce its meaning from the context
She said, "There's a passage in your textbook you should read..." and flipped to it, and I looked.
It said, paraphrasing a bit, "Inflated writing: These are words and phrases used by a writer to sound educated or self-important."
I looked at her and said, "...are you saying that I am being a SNOB by using words that my classmates don't know?"
Okay, maybe I WAS being a little snobby at this point, but I still don't appreciate HER insinuating that.
She was really quiet for a moment like she had no idea what to say, and then said "...nn-o..."
She also didn't really like that I used the word 'puce' to describe the colour of the carpeting. "It's a good word," she said, "But I don't think one person in this class would know what it means, and I consider this class above average."
I said, "Then even if they're smart, they are NOT well-read." I'll admit, that one WAS pretty snobby, but I was getting annoyed.
She said she could see my point, but said, essentially, that I write unusually and with an archaic vocabulary and that I need to use simpler words in the future. I left feeling like I hadn't accomplished much at all, but it did feel good to say all of that. Sometimes I CAN be assertive, and it's kind of fun. XD
But really... am I snobby? Do I sound self-important? Please tell me honestly. D: I never thought any of these words or expressions were terribly rare, I would never classify 'save for' as a colloquialism, and I do not think that someone in a college writing class should be expected to dumb their writing down for peers who aren't going to be reading one's essay at all! If that's snobby, than I guess I'm snobby.
I've used the word 'snobby' a lot in this entry and it doesn't really look like a word any more.
Oh, and she didn't even comment on the Waffle House being on my list. I am disappoint.