“Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice.” This week, I caught a student plagiarizing her final exam. Correction: “caught” gives the impression it was a skillful game of “Go” or an episode of “Spy vs. Spy”, when in actuality, she was that guy from Tiananmen Square, blatantly daring me to run her over. Who am I to pass up a dare? But after I zeroed out the grade, I wondered if this was some strange revenge plan? It wouldn’t be the first time a student has failed a class on purpose to hurt me (yes, I have been told that: “I failed this class to get back at you.”), so I asked her what the deal was and, proving Hanlon’s Razor, she said she just didn’t understand the assignment and thought that copying (the whole thing) from the Internet was allowed. It bears saying that the final exam (a book review on a book of the students’ own choosing) was given to them three months before the due date with a very clear suggestion to see me for help. Ah, well.
However, I think there needs to be a corollary to this law which says that persistent incompetence should be viewed maliciously. Case in point: after telling the above student that I had to fill out a Student Disciplinary Form on her and that consequences could range from her just getting a zero from me (no further discipline) to being suspended from school, but that was a call for the Dean to make. The student then went to an admissions counselor (the infamous P whom I’ve had moments with before) which led to my getting this email:
I’m meeting with one of your students who was explaining to me about her meeting with you regarding copying from the internet or book (sic). She reported that you were going to “write a letter and send to the ?boss? to look at and make a decision about her being expelled”.
If this is the case, there should have been a Student Discipline Report filed (sic) out and shared with the student so they (sic) can sign and keep a copy. XXXX said she has nothing in writing from you about this. I know plagiarism is a serious matter, but no reason for a student to feel scared, afraid and in tears about maybe being kicked out of school, especially since she just moved her (sic) …seeking to better her educational situation – again her words.
I know there are always two sides to this, and I was hoping you can fill me in, so as her Counselor, I can help her understand what she needs to do. If there is a Student Disciplinary Form, done, she will need a copy after you explain it to her.
Thanks in advance and I hope by following the procedures, any misunderstanding can be eliminated on how to handle such situations.
Make no mistake, P is a cow, and a malicious one at that, like Crazy-Bessie-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-barnyard malicious. So, I responded:
i am very familiar with the discipline reporting process, but thank you for taking the time to make sure i know how it goes. i am also familiar with the consequences, and expulsion is not one of them, at least not for a first offense. i think perhaps that this student has misrepresented our discussion to you.
as for filling you in, i’m afraid this is a matter between myself and XXXX. if she needs to speak with me further, i have never turned a student away in need. pulling you into this is at this stage certainly not an option for me to entertain. i’m sure you’re quite familiar not only with FERPA but also with… procedures that say counselors appear to help students fill out paperwork should it come to an appeal, but not before. i do, however, thank you for your zealous advocacy for our students.
enjoy your summer!
The real horror was that before this email (cc’d to about three admins) I was considering not filling out the paperwork (it was, after all, the next-to-last day of the semester) then P had to go and make a scene, basically forcing me to report this student. Ah, well.
My friend Aziza posted about this months ago on Facebook, saying it was from Research Design and Methods for Studying Cultures by Victor C. De Munck, but when I went to look for it, there was no web-based elaboration, so I assumed it was from a very field-specific text. Whether it was or not, leave it to Google to get Munck’s book online in under six months. I’d like to propose “Johnson’s Corollary” from a lecture by my Linguistics 707 teacher, Bob Johnson: “Anything that is American Sign Language is easily identified by signing it to Bob’s grandmother. When she says, ‘You know I don’t understand that stuff,’ you have produced ASL.”
I’d never heard of this word before the other day. Everyone knows the antagonist is the hero of the story, and the antagonist is the enemy (or as my friend Ren used to say, “Hi! I’m Satan. I’m the antagonist, the complication, if you will.”). The deuteragonist is the character of secondary importance in a story, carrying equal weight with the antagonist. The best example I can come up with is Lord Mhoram in the first series of Stephen R. Donaldson’s The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. He was the proof that the Land existed outside of Covenant’s experience. His story is equally weighted with Covenant’s.
Martin Gray of “Too Dangerous for a Girl” today asked his GLA brethren and sistren, “Is Heroes still doing OK in the US then? It pretty much lost UK viewer interest after the pants first season.” which sparked a discussion of whether or not he was just fucking with us by making up some seemingly plausible limey slang like “pants”. Turns out that it means “crap or nonsense”.
I am going to use this word every chance I get. Thanks, Martin!
Everyone knows that “ambidextrous” means “able to use both hands with equal skill”, right? “Ambi-” meaning “both, or dual” and “dextrous” meaning “right, or skillful”. So, how cool is it to learn that there is a counterpoised word that means “clumsy with both hands”: “ambisinister”!! As ever, all things left (or “sinister” in Latin) get a bad rap (ever hear about kids in Catholic schools getting their knuckles rapped for writing with their left hands because that’s where the Devil lives? Strewth!). This ranks right up there in terms of linguistic coolness with the curiously astrological roots for “disaster” (“dis” = “bad, wrong”, “aster” = “star”).
I heard this word on “Law & Order” the other day, and then it occurred to me that L&O is the best source to continue my yiddification.
The study of saints. I was thinking that my short story collection should be titled Hagiography, even though only two of the stories are about saints. The rest are fairy tales of a sort. Still, until I find a word that means “the study of fairy tales”, I’m sticking with Hagiography.
I’ve missed out on reading many, many of the classics, so I pulled Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness off my shelf (yes, unread for (dear Lord…) fifteen years) and began moving towards rectification. “Ansible” is her word. It’s a radio that can transmit a signal across immeasurable distance instantaneously. Le Guin says it’s taken from the word “answerable”. It reminds me of the Latin “ansa”, which means “a handle or loop”. I have an idea for this year’s Christmas story, and I think some sort of ansible would fit in perfectly.
Another Yiddish word I’m going to try to incorporate into my vocabulary. I’ve already started to use “fartatshish”.
My friend John posted this stunning plea to studio heads to make Breaking Dawn into a movie. Unlike this young man, I’ve never read the book and have no intention of doing so, nor do I plan to see any of the Twilight movies. Still, his from-the-soul demand gave me two things: a good laugh and the word “lacteal”.
This season on “Supernatural”, the Winchester boys are working to stop the Apocalypse that they started. Of course, this means there’re more angel and demons running around than Dan Brown ever tried to name, relics to be had, and God to be found. During the last episode, “Dark Side of the Moon”, Sam and Dean have to travel along the “Axis mundi” to get to Heaven’s Garden Area. I thought I’d never heard of the Axis mundi before, but it turned out that everyone has probably heard of it, though maybe as one of its other names.
I love this phrase. Taken from a line in Hamlet, “petard” refers to small bombs that were used to breach walls or portcullises in castles; “hoist”, of course, means to be dragged or thrown into the air. Put together, there’s a wonderful image of a person planting a bomb and being to slow to get away before it explodes. Metaphorically speaking, it means that one’s weapon has turned around and hurt one instead. Ah, William!
I’m watching “Holmes on Homes” and just stunned by the level of incompetence displayed by the previous contractors who had worked on this couple’s basement. The Dunning-Kruger Effect doesn’t refer to Nightmare on Elm Street, but rather to the superiority incompetent people feel about their “accomplishments”.
This is the name of the paragraph mark used in editing. Now I’m dying to know if some clever cookie has come up with names for the infinity symbol (besides “lemniscate“) and the graphic used to show breaks inside chapters.
pedophilia vs. hebephilia vs. ephebophilia
Bill Donohue of The Catholic League issued a statement the other day saying that the whole boy-raping scandal that is really the work of gay people who are working to undermine the moral authority of the Chruch by… reporting on its crimes against small children. Oh oh oh! And that really, it’s wasn’t pedophilia, it was really homosexuality at play.
Oh, Bill. Learn the difference between the words above and what most sane people consider the age of consent to be. Freak.
flume
One of the only rides I will willingly go on at an amusement park is the log ride, technically called a “log flume”. Everything else gives me gas.
samizdat
I came across this word on the back cover of Eye of Argon, universally accepted as the worst piece of fantasy writing ever (possibly the worst piece of writing ever, full stop). In essence, it means “self-published”, but there’s an under-meaning of the courage to put work of your own raw, unvarnished work forward. There’s also a sense of urgency involved. Beautiful word.
keffiyeh
A friend from IUP got me a keffiyeh while he was in New York one time. It was a very cool gift, and I wore it all the time (as a scarf. in winter. which is nine months out of the year in Indiana, PA). I still have it, though it has seen better days (the only older piece of clothing I have is red nylon underwear, a birthday gift from a dear friend when we were 19 (!!!)). I’d like to get another one just to prove that it’s a fucking scarf and not a cry for a second Shoa.
sphygmomanometer
This is the proper name for a blood pressure taker. Who knew?
kerslopis, squish mitten and minge
Once again, I think men get shafted (so to speak) when it comes to cool names for human sexy bits. Women get “kaslopis” and “squish mitten” among many other pet names, whereas men have to be content with “lap ham” and “cock”. It hardly seems fair.
Women also have better clothes.
hybristophilia
I love “Criminal Minds”! From last night’s episode, I learned this new word which explains the phenomenon of why otherwise sane people marry Death Row convicts. Even more interesting, it’s derived from “hubris”, a hallmark of Greek and Shakespearean tragedies.
rochambeau
And all this time I thought it meant being kicked in the nuts. Little did I know!
hypnagogia
There is a term for all those pre-sleep and pre-waking experiences I’ve been having so often these days. Apparently, in hypnagogia it is not unusual to hear one’s name be called or to come away with bits and pieces of conversation. When I first read about this, I thought it might also encompass the “frozen wakefulness” I get sometimes, but that is actually sleep paralysis. At least I don’t have night terrors.
cachectic
Last summer, my father passed away from metastatic non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In essence, the cancer attached itself to his organs and instead of destroying them, ate off of them, taking away his energy a little more every day. This is word for that.
