(no subject)
This article by Michael Drout on the state of Anglo-Saxon studies is full of snarkiness. Regardless of whether you think he's right or not:
...far too many of our colleagues (and even more of their students) really have very little idea of what we do because they are appallingly ignorant about language. This statement may seem deliberatively provocative, but I think it is true. Far too many English professors and graduate students don't really know much about how English works....My particular colleagues are good-hearted people, real intellectuals, who care about literature, English and the Liberal Arts. But they certainly do not like it when I rub their noses in the fact that I know stuff they don't know (but feel they should).
...far too many of our colleagues (and even more of their students) really have very little idea of what we do because they are appallingly ignorant about language. This statement may seem deliberatively provocative, but I think it is true. Far too many English professors and graduate students don't really know much about how English works....My particular colleagues are good-hearted people, real intellectuals, who care about literature, English and the Liberal Arts. But they certainly do not like it when I rub their noses in the fact that I know stuff they don't know (but feel they should).