Excuse me, folks... I gots me a fire to put out, right over here. [Comments from my bigass firehose are in red.]
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it's always best to speak concisely and say what you mean if you have even the slightest doubt about the intellectual capacity of your audience. [True! So I'll be extra careful when addressing you.]
From the context of your post, I can see that you were just using a cutesy, exaggerated term for "dealing with urgent matters." [But I offered no context for my post--just a snippet o' snark. If you understand neither the meanings of common idioms NOR basic vocabulary words, then, wow...conversing with you must be like talking with a brick wall. --Oh, that idiom was too hard for you, too? Sorry.]
Would you accept the phrase "putting out fires" in an English composition assignment about, let's say, Pride and Prejudice? For example, "Darcy occupies himself with putting out fires after Elizabeth tours Derbyshire." [zOMG, sure thing, if my students were writing about Pride and Prejudice and Vampires! hells yeah!!!]
Why not set an example for students? It's hard to enforce the "do as I say, not as I do" rule. But maybe you allow your students to sprinkle their written work with hyperbole and folksy expressions and accept exaggerated metaphoric excuses from late and absent students. [OK, let's be serious. Your argument is that I should speak as I want my students to write. Well, written English and spoken English are two different things. They're...... ohhhh, I see what you did there. Your straw man made me once more forget your dubious intellectual capacity. You just nevermind, dear.]
You may think that whatever you were doing was just as difficult as "putting out fires" but is that really an accurate analogy for what you were doing? Were lives in danger? Was property destroyed by an inferno? [Obviously, you've never been a college professor.]
I am just suggesting you try communicating with more precision and less folksy hyperbolic metaphors. [We're sorry, but we are not accepting unsolicited suggestions at this time. Please try your call again later, or dial an operator for assistance. This is a recording.]
Man. That didn't take long. First flame war officially done. Congratulations, CM. We should have had a pool.
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought the fireworks on the 4th were good.
ReplyDeleteSheesh, you hate me. I get it. Can you give it a rest already?
ReplyDeleteNope. No mercy for sanctimoniousness here, Missy. The smarmy rhetorical questions, the pseudo-empathy, the "I'm just suggesting" -- yechhhhhh. You got what you deserved. I'm OK with earnestness, but that was pure douche.
ReplyDeleteRachel, it's not personal. You're supposed to fire back a post with insults, curses and false rumors of Dr. Snarky's housekeeping abilities. This is all about ratings. Didn't you get the script from the reality show producers?
ReplyDeleteRatings, yeah! I'd love to say "BRING IT"....but I just don't think she's got it.
ReplyDeleteYou asked a question in your original post, soliciting responses, but you don't like mine, so I'm a douche? It's completely personal and no, I'm not going to 'bring it.' I can't be bothered to feed the trolls nor engage in your petty flamebait war over a couple of blog comments that you happened to disagree with. Why don't you move on, already, it's pretty clear that you hate me and think I'm a douche, so to continue to reiterate that is getting stale.
ReplyDeleteLet's just keep in mind that I never called anyone a douche or a flake, nor flung about insults. Apparently I'm one of the few CM readers that isn't filled with hate and bitterness and bile for the entire world. Perhaps my refusal to randomly spew bile at anyone who dares to leave a comment is why you hate me? Or could be because I'm not miserable in my university job. Whatever it may be, I think you've made it clear enough that you hate me so let's just leave it at that.
So much wrong, so little time....
ReplyDelete"You asked a question in your original post, soliciting responses"
No, I didn't.
"but you don't like mine, so I'm a douche?"
That's what Marcia Brady said. Good god. Marcia Brady =/= Dr. Snarky. Duh. (Reading comprehension much?)
"It's completely personal."
Nope.
"Why don't you move on, already, it's pretty clear that you hate me and think I'm a douche, so to continue to reiterate that is getting stale."
*smiles* You know what, Pollyanna? You're awfully CUTE when you're angry!
I suggested it before and I'll state it more succinctly now:
ReplyDeleteRachel doesn't understand web communication.
She doesn't understand the idea that posts often provoke a conversation in the comments that involve more than just a personal conversation between her and the original poster (which is why she has trouble distinguishing who said what).
She doesn't grasp that the vast majority of our posts are not soliciting feedback to fix a problem; they are meant to either be funny and/or solicit a feeling of community via shared misery of working at or attending institutions of tertiary education (you know, like the name of the web-site -- College Misery).
And, more importantly, she doesn't realize that no one fucking cares about her ill-informed, poorly articulated, unsolicited opinion.
What she does need to realize (or else she'll have trouble for the rest of her life) is that she often comes off as incredibly condescending when offering those unsolicited "suggestions" without establishing herself as credible to offer it.
To wit: Has she ever even taught a single college-level course while working in that cubicle farm at the U? Or is she really and truly just a typical snowflake telling teacher how to run the classroom? Cuz if she's ever taught, that experience isn't coming through at all in her "suggestions." And if it is, no wonder she's not faculty.
loosen up Rachel, baby.
ReplyDeleteRachel, you got all condescending about the original post, which was mocking students for not recognizing a commonly used idiom. You criticized the original poster for daring to assume that students might actually understand spoken English. You were asking for trouble, babe.
ReplyDeleteNow with your repeated "You hate me" mantra, you are really coming off like a silly twit.
And as for you saying that you are one of the few not bitter, are you really that stupid that you cannot recognize that this is a place for venting frustration at the very trying conditions under which we are all working? This, my dear (and yes, I do mean that condescendingly....I have already learned that you are an extremely literal person) is a place to F'n VENT! It's FUN! If you don't enjoy the tone, you are certainly welcome to start your own website called "College Joy" and see if you can work up a following!
You don't seem to have anything of value to say here.
Rachel, I did not call you a douche. I called your comment "pure douche," i.e., "That was pure douche." One does not refer to people as "that." So in addition to a regimen of irony supplements and a tutorial on web communication, perhaps a grammar brush-up?
ReplyDeleteAs to this blog, it offers us up a genre to inhabit, and moi, I greet that with relish. Marcia Brady by day: diplomatic, ethical, patient, humbly aware of the great privilege attending her tenured R1 job. Marcia Brady by CM/night: bilious, mean-spirited, tired of salary cuts and overstuffed classes as her university privatizes by the minute, increasingly astonished by student ignorance, etc.
Embrace the snark! It make you strong, like ox! It like spicy pepper in dull goulash of academic existence!
[Please, not to say I not have command of English like you. I study English much time in my old country of Mauritania. I learns little French too: like "moi"].