Still, this kind of comment does give one pause for thought. Do I gravitate, deliberately or otherwise, towards vocabulary that reminds people of an SAT preparation manual? Do I speak and write clearly, or do I simply sound like William F. Buckley’s idiot love child? The question is of considerable concern to me professionally. Working, as I do, in the marketing department of a philanthropic organization, much of my value as an employee centers on my ability to communicate effectively with a wide range of audiences. If I do my job right, people should be left reaching for their checkbooks, not their dictionaries and/or reference manuals. It’s pretty much the same attitude I have towards sex.
All the same, it is true that spending any significant amount of time in academia throws you directly into the path of words that might otherwise swerve safely around you in the course of a normal day. In the short term, this isn’t too much of a hazard, and in my own discipline (literary studies) at least I’d like to think that most people come out rather the better for being sideswiped by Chaucer and Shakespeare. No, the real danger arises when one comes into close and prolonged contact with what I consider to be the bane of clear and understandable language: academic scholarship.
All the same, it is true that spending any significant amount of time in academia throws you directly into the path of words that might otherwise swerve safely around you in the course of a normal day. In the short term, this isn’t too much of a hazard, and in my own discipline (literary studies) at least I’d like to think that most people come out rather the better for being sideswiped by Chaucer and Shakespeare. No, the real danger arises when one comes into close and prolonged contact with what I consider to be the bane of clear and understandable language: academic scholarship.
Sustained exposure to academic language is like getting hit by a gigantic snowball rolling down hill very fast. Either you’re going to get flattened when it plows over you, or it’s going to pick you up and keep on rolling, getting larger and larger as it goes. And you’ve become a part of it, adding to its momentum and squishing other people unlucky or unwise enough to stand in the way. A very few will see it coming and will have the presence of mind to step aside, but my observation is that most people simply get blindsided.
Okay, not all scholarly writing is bad. I’ve read plenty of clear, edifying and engaging pieces of scholarship in the course of my studies. But there’s also enough material out there that would make Strunk and White consider a suicide pact. Here’s an example of what I mean – taken, sadly, from a book that I otherwise respect as a valuable resource.
(Look, before anybody invokes the case of Kettle vs. Pot, I know – I know, I KNOW – that I don’t have much room to criticize, given that the very title of this blog is in a language that few people outside of academia read. Still, I’ve tried to undercut my own pretentiousness by explaining clearly what the title means. And if it makes anybody feel better, my Latin is in all likelihood incorrect anyway.)
Academia, of course, doesn’t hold a monopoly on this problem. The world of nonprofit communications can be just as fraught with danger, or maybe even more so. The philanthropic organization where I work has close ties not only to certain segments of academia, but state and federal government as well. It’s the Bermuda Triangle of bad style, into which clear and understandable English all too often disappears without a trace.
It can be hard not to lose one's way in the swirling clouds of words that lead to phrases like “implementing initiatives within the service continuum to create systemic change” when that’s the kind of stuff you’re exposed to on a regular basis. Pretty soon, you begin to catch yourself translating simple, clear and uncomplicated language into unnecessarily complex, grammatically-tortured equivalents . . . just for fun.
Here’s one that came out of watching Sesame Street with my son. It’s the lyrics to the “Elmo’s World” theme song, run through the filter of early childhood development-speak, a hot-button topic where I happen to work.
Better than toilet paper? You make the call.
Okay, not all scholarly writing is bad. I’ve read plenty of clear, edifying and engaging pieces of scholarship in the course of my studies. But there’s also enough material out there that would make Strunk and White consider a suicide pact. Here’s an example of what I mean – taken, sadly, from a book that I otherwise respect as a valuable resource.
“The limitation of a purely subversive interest in didacticism is that it confines itself to interpretation on the plane of the texte, the level of diegesis, while it leaves out consideration of the hors-texte, or those eventual postdiegetic moments lying outside strict questions of textuality.”Huh? Hors-texte? You know . . . it’s like hors d’oeuvres except . . . um, with words. Okay, I’m still trying to unpack this one, but the sense in which it’s used here links back to the writings of Jacques Derrida, the literary theorist and philosopher whose weighty pronouncements have been used by legions of scholars to slice and dice texts the way a tableside chef handles his knives at your favorite Japanese restaurant. More on him later (Derrida, I mean, not the chef). In the meanwhile, I think I can safely say that I know what most or all of these words mean individually. But when they’re stacked together like this the overall effect I experience is not unlike a particularly strong neurotoxin administered directly to the brain: paralysis, loss of consciousness and finally suffocation.
(Look, before anybody invokes the case of Kettle vs. Pot, I know – I know, I KNOW – that I don’t have much room to criticize, given that the very title of this blog is in a language that few people outside of academia read. Still, I’ve tried to undercut my own pretentiousness by explaining clearly what the title means. And if it makes anybody feel better, my Latin is in all likelihood incorrect anyway.)
Academia, of course, doesn’t hold a monopoly on this problem. The world of nonprofit communications can be just as fraught with danger, or maybe even more so. The philanthropic organization where I work has close ties not only to certain segments of academia, but state and federal government as well. It’s the Bermuda Triangle of bad style, into which clear and understandable English all too often disappears without a trace.
It can be hard not to lose one's way in the swirling clouds of words that lead to phrases like “implementing initiatives within the service continuum to create systemic change” when that’s the kind of stuff you’re exposed to on a regular basis. Pretty soon, you begin to catch yourself translating simple, clear and uncomplicated language into unnecessarily complex, grammatically-tortured equivalents . . . just for fun.
Here’s one that came out of watching Sesame Street with my son. It’s the lyrics to the “Elmo’s World” theme song, run through the filter of early childhood development-speak, a hot-button topic where I happen to work.
La la, La la
Social, emotional and cognitive environment in which Elmo lives
La la, La la
Social, emotional and cognitive environment in which Elmo lives
Elmo receives the benefit of an emotionally positive and supportive relationship with his goldfish
He also uses his crayon as a tool in positive early learning experiences
That’s the social, emotional and cognitive environment in which Elmo lives!
Better than toilet paper? You make the call.
No comments:
Post a Comment