Zemblan Grammar

One of the more odious tasks I have within my department is acting as an editorial consultant for the journal of student writing we put out every year.  I always conveniently forget when I am supposed to get my evaluations of the submitted essays back to the Editor in Chief, and today, unfortunately, my laziness caught up with me.  I had to peel myself out of bed with a slight hangover (hello! last night’s post was so the whiskey talking!) and look at this downright terrible essay.  Oh, lord, was it a complete nightmare.

I don’t really know where to begin, but it was exactly the kind of writing I try to tell students to avoid.  Say-nothing, throwaway sentences stuffed with nonsense filler; strange, undefined terms and concepts; and a complete lack of forward motion to the argument.  Yes, this essay had it all!  Not only that, but the (unidentified, but probably female) writer clearly had no idea what Ralph Waldo Emerson was saying with all those words he wrote.  Every single citation was grossly misapprehended.  I wanted to pound my head on the desk, but my head seemed to be pounding along just fine without my help.

Here’s the thing–these pieces get submitted for consideration not by the students themselves, but by the teachers.  Whichever professor or teaching fellow the girl had must have given her a high grade on this piece of half-baked sludge.  Probably an A.  And all she had to do for that probable A was include several poorly chosen passages from Emerson and repeat the same undeveloped idea eighty-seven different ways, for about seven pages–the poor, simple-minded rube!  And somewhere in Massachusetts, a transparent eyeball spins in its grave.

I’ve often been hard on myself for giving more high grades than I thought I should, but in my class, this paper would never have come near an A.  I am, of course, dying to know who wrote it and which teacher submitted it to the journal.  Sadly, that juiciest of information is unavailable.  I certainly have my ideas, though.  I bet it was that new teaching fellow who, at the beginning-of-the-year get together, ordered a glass of milk from the bar.  I saw this with my own eyes–a GLASS of MILK from the BAR.  Clearly this chick is just the sort of cream puff who would think a paper this rancid was actually worth her time, the sucker.

But, as Emerson said one time, "Life is too short to waste / the critic bite or cynic bark."  A good enough thought, I suppose, especially when there’s so much milk-drinking ass out there to kick.