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Jenn and Holly are doing their homework. Jenn is reading an introduction to the Bhagavad-Gita and Holly is reading an article on a huge Victorian novel called The Moonstone.
We argued for a while about whose was worse, with Jenn spouting stuff about "Krishna" and me complaining about the significance given to some quicksand.
Jenn: Who uses the phrase "elliptical philosophical discourse"?
Holly: Scholars.
Jenn: She's not a scholar, though!
Holly: She has to be. No one else talks like that.
(I have friends who've learned calculus but I--even though I hate math and it hates me--can add and subtract better and faster than they can. My theory on why this is so is that people only have so many brain cells to use for math, and they're all filled up by the time you get to calculus. So you have to evict other bits of knowledge in order to fit derivatives and integrals (or elliptic curves and modular functions) in there, and then you can't balance your checkbook or keep score when you go bowling with your friends. Or remember how to tie your shoes, or something.
Anyway, it's the same thing with these scholarly types: they've had so many years of being immersed in a certain kind of language that no normal person can understand them. They are honored for their obscure, encoded writing...instead of being pitied for their impenetrability, which I think is a more appropriate response.)
Holly: Mine has the word "synecdochically" in it. Synecdoche used as an adjective! I win.
Jenn: Now it should be better, I've finished the introduction, and I'm actually reading the thing. [a minute later] They named their horns!
Holly: What?
Jenn: Their horns! Trumpets. Now I have to remember names of trumpets?
Holly: Oh, that's such a bunch of crap! There's no way opium has anything to do with the Indian moon god!
Jenn {bursts out laughing]: That's terrible. How long is that article?
[Holly holds up bunch of Xeroxed pages, consisting of about forty pages of a book]
Michele [walks in, we are happy to have the interruption]: Holly, go to Google...
Holly: Okay...
Michele: ...and type in my name.
Jenn: Are you on the internet?
Michele: My address shows up! And my telephone number! Click on 'images,' Holly.
Jenn: A picture too? [jumps down to see this...then gives Michele a hug as Holly suppresses saying something about Big Brother because Michele is traumatized]
Life is so funny.
We argued for a while about whose was worse, with Jenn spouting stuff about "Krishna" and me complaining about the significance given to some quicksand.
Jenn: Who uses the phrase "elliptical philosophical discourse"?
Holly: Scholars.
Jenn: She's not a scholar, though!
Holly: She has to be. No one else talks like that.
(I have friends who've learned calculus but I--even though I hate math and it hates me--can add and subtract better and faster than they can. My theory on why this is so is that people only have so many brain cells to use for math, and they're all filled up by the time you get to calculus. So you have to evict other bits of knowledge in order to fit derivatives and integrals (or elliptic curves and modular functions) in there, and then you can't balance your checkbook or keep score when you go bowling with your friends. Or remember how to tie your shoes, or something.
Anyway, it's the same thing with these scholarly types: they've had so many years of being immersed in a certain kind of language that no normal person can understand them. They are honored for their obscure, encoded writing...instead of being pitied for their impenetrability, which I think is a more appropriate response.)
Holly: Mine has the word "synecdochically" in it. Synecdoche used as an adjective! I win.
Jenn: Now it should be better, I've finished the introduction, and I'm actually reading the thing. [a minute later] They named their horns!
Holly: What?
Jenn: Their horns! Trumpets. Now I have to remember names of trumpets?
Holly: Oh, that's such a bunch of crap! There's no way opium has anything to do with the Indian moon god!
Jenn {bursts out laughing]: That's terrible. How long is that article?
[Holly holds up bunch of Xeroxed pages, consisting of about forty pages of a book]
Michele [walks in, we are happy to have the interruption]: Holly, go to Google...
Holly: Okay...
Michele: ...and type in my name.
Jenn: Are you on the internet?
Michele: My address shows up! And my telephone number! Click on 'images,' Holly.
Jenn: A picture too? [jumps down to see this...then gives Michele a hug as Holly suppresses saying something about Big Brother because Michele is traumatized]
Life is so funny.