Professors Use Big Words to
“You malingerers with your laptops, I know you’re all on that MyFace, I propse you all perform auto-coitus,” says Professor Stevens. - photo by Tim Etler
John D. Miller
An informant and education reformist reported to the UC Regents that professors at mul o the long-running debate that many classes offered in college do not provide students with concrete knowledge they can apply in the real world, such as cooking sunny-side-up eggs without popping the yolk, making an argument without using the word “paradigm,” or why basket weaving remains so pervasive in modern society.
Dr. George Lipsitz, a professor of ethnic studies at UCSD, countered the claim as “inordinately fatuous.” He argued that the government whistle-blower was only “bemused by [his] elocution because he is categorically inimical to the unencumbered pedantic milieu concomitant to higher education”.
Once the precise meaning of Lipsitz’s statement is interpreted, the informant is expected to anonymously rebut any and all attacks on his sexuality. Experts estimate that this rebuttal could take as long as two weeks.
The UC Regents have called for a system that evaluates the academic value of professors’ course materials. From what observers were able to understand of the grunts and violent slapping of the board meeting, a “one to masturbatory-hand-gesture-scale” will be employed, keying in on specific “problem departments.” This comes in light of the informant’s allegation that tenured faculty will often invent words to sheath the fact that their investigations are riddled with circuitous arguments, flawed circular logic, and contain “a less-than-optimal number of things that are true.”
Dr. Dariush Eskandari, a colleague in the UCB Sociology department sides with Lipsitz, contending that the accusations are unfounded. “Our baroque lexicon is not a profligate defilement of the English language but a necessity in our vocation, a product of meticulous cerebration.” Academia’s central argument over recent years has been that the pressure to publish has required them to develop and use a diverse vocabulary to convey concise and unambiguous ideas.
Eskandari exclaimed, “Sometimes to get the point across you need to make up even more words!” adding that more often than not, double, triple, up to dodecyl meanings are used to prevent it from being even more less-unambiguous.
Eskandari, who coauthors Lipsitz’s book, A Comparative Perspective on the Discourse of Hegemonicalistic-Cross Culturalism: 10 Years of Field Work on the Dichotomies in Organic Social Movements, explained, “These words are vital to the survival of the academic system. If people knew what they were debating then they wouldn’t need so many professors around.”
From the student side of the debate, those who enroll hoping for “easy As” are not concerned with a lack of substance in the courses, but rather feel betrayed by the difficulty caused by large and convoluted word choice. “I mean, who does he thinking he is, talking all gay like he knows stuff,” said Revelle 8th year transfer, Erik Freyer.
Lipsitz rebutted, “How can students, or this hornswoggling rancorous invigilator, grasp that our literature is erroneous if they do not even understand what we have committed to text? Oops, no, scratch that, trade secret revealed, uh… uh…I mean... APOTHEGM!, SYLLOGISM! PERSPICACITY! YOU WILL LIONIZE ME AS YOUR EMINENT ARBITER! FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION!”