Birth of a Language

The story of the English language is an extraordinary one. It has the characteristics of a bold and successful adventure: tenacity, luck, near extinction on more than one occasion, dazzling flexibility, and an extraordinary power to absorb. And it's still going on. New dialects, new Englishes, are evolving all the time all over the world. But every story needs a beginning and, in the case at hand, who better than Lord Melvyn Bragg and the BBC to recount the tale of the birth of this remarkable language?

Visigoths at Academe's Doors?

"If the scuttlebutt about reading is true, the Visigoths are at the door,"
 warn Drs. David Joliffe and Allison Harl. An array of national surveys
 and studies suggests neither high school nor college students spend
 much time preparing for class, the central activity of which entails
 reading assigned articles, chapters, and books. Similar reviews indicate
 college students spend little or no time reading for pleasure. As major
 players in general education, most of which requires substantial reading,
 English department faculty are increasingly asking themselves:
 What are our students reading and why?

Like I Mean This Doesn't Help, You Know

"What the poor, the weak and the inarticulate desperately require is power, organization, and a sense of identity and purpose," affirmed the late U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone (D-WI), "not [the] rarefied advice of political scientists." Nor, we would add, a gloss that deems recent research on inarticulate speech patterns, viz., the use of filler words such as um, like, you know, "a minor victory for the inarticulate, who think more, even as they stumble in speech." Um, I mean, this doesn't like help, you know, even if it is easier and cheaper than constructively addressing the matter by improving our educational system.

Once More into the Breech

First, an overdue apology for my gross inattention to these pages. I'll spare you the hoary bromide of the tree falling unattended in the forest and simply confess that like my beloved Brazil football team for a moment that seemed longer, my motivation dived. Confession is good for the soul, and reflection is good for the mind. On reflection, I recall what I've long held as a touchstone, viz., writing is not merely a means to present ideas but a catalyst to develop, organize, clarify, and even create them. In other words, it doesn't require an audience, as much as I might, after a year of labor, hope for one. Besides every thought ― written or not ― is contemplated by at least two minds. With that in mind then, once more into the breech! Comments as welcome as they are absent.  

Too Little, Too Late?

Responding to changes in the SAT announced by the College Board, Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, has dismissed the modest reforms as a case of too little, too late. "The blunt fact is that the SAT has never been a good predictor of academic achievement in college," he writes in Time, citing high-school grades as a better indicator. Not content to leave it at that, Botstein adds yet another charge to his litany: "SAT scores have also become an integral part of another money-making racket ― college rankings." He is, of course, not the only critic of the changes. In her Washington Post op-ed, Alexandra Petri agrees they do not go far enough, suggesting the test should consist of a single question: "Can you use Google?"

Lord of the Ring?

Many university professors would quite willing forgo Tolkein's magical ring for a successful finale to their quest for the equally elusive one of tenure. In his two-part series in Inside Higher Ed, Jacob Vigdor, a professor of public policy and economics at Duke University, offers some advice on "How To Earn Tenure." Hopefully, it may help your mission to be Lord of the Ring. Part 1  Part 2

Angelica's Journal/Angelica's Journey

"On top of it all, I'm stressing out over what school is going to believe enough in me to accept me. I'm afraid that if I don't get into a great school, the word will never hear Angelica Herrara," the aspiring writer wrote in her journal ― a practice she'd begun at age 10. Thanks to it, in part, I don't believe that will be the case. "I pray somebody hears the honesty I am proclaiming in my words," she added. To which I say, amen. "If nobody listens, nobody hears the voices of the might be greats," our world will be impoverished far more than this working-class girl with a dream. From Journals to Journalism: Tracing the Trajectory of Literate Development

The New English Empire

Till about 40, Lenovo's CEO Yang Yuanqing spoke hardly any English, but when he bought IBM's personal computer division in 2005, he immersed himself in the language. This week, he was in São Paulo for a board meeting. Like all the proceedings, save a press conference for Chinese media, it was conducted in English. Lenovo is not alone in the switch to the emerging language gold standard in business, as The Economist reports.

Colin Wilson: A Storied Life

Do you ― or does your father ― remember when John F. Kennedy died? How about C.S. Lewis? (Hint: it was the same day.) As science fiction author Ken MacLeod observes in Aeon, Colin Wilson also had "the misfortune" of dying on the same day as more famous man ― Nelson Mandela. Still for a self-taught working-class author, Wilson made some waves, beginning with his first book at age 24, The Outsider, hailed ― if only for the moment ― as Britain's answer to Sartre and Camus.

What Happens in Literature

Uniqueness is mediated by language, the Irish author Kevin Stevens reminds us in his retrospective review of Saul Bellow's Herzog.  Not simply as style, but as the medium through which ideas, images, and narrative are captured and conveyed, language is what happens in literature, as Richard Ford, an American writer, aptly puts it. It is the field of battle for literary genius and the canvas of the author's vision. "Without the brilliance of their language," Stevens observes,  it. It is the field of battle for literary genius and the canvas of the author's vision. "Without the brilliance of their language," Stevens observes, "Moby Dick's symbolism would be heavy handed, Henry V's speechmaking jingoistic, The Waste Land's imagery hollow."   

Simple Rules for Getting Published

"The best papers are those in which complex ideas are expressed in a way that those who are less than immersed in the field can understand," Philip Bourne, editor-in-chief of PloS Computational Biology, advises in "Ten Simple Rules for Getting Published." While Bourne's guidance is intended for scientific writers, its practical relevance extends to the craft as a whole as in rule number one: "Read many papers and learn from both the good and the bad work of others." As I advise my academic writing students: Read, read, read. Write, write, write. Revise, revise, revise. All this and more can be found in Prof. Bourne's informative article.

Academic Writing Sine Qua Non: Something That Works

A scholarly editor is looking for what any editor is — something that will work, Prof. William Germano, a former editor in chief at Columbia University Press, observes in a recent interview. Noting times when pre-submission editing can prove beneficial, the Cooper Union dean cites ESL academic writers who need a "professional boost." Echoing my advice to writers I've been privileged to serve, Dean Germano counsels that it helps focus one's writing to imagine writing for erudite readers in other disciplines.