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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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By the same token I've found yours and others' comments here illuminating and a good counterpoint, so thanks for the discussion - and thanks Joe Fox!
fwiw, if my arguments have interested or engaged anyone at all you may be amused to know that I have never studied formal English structure (only coming to that through linguistics later in life), have never studied formal debate, nor have ever studied formal logic (again, at least until comparatively recent years). Any skills with language that I do now possess, I have picked up largely by that strange process of osmosis that is so derided in this article.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Again, Fish also says that "once ideas or themes are allowed in, the focus is shifted from the forms that make the organization of content possible to this or that piece of content," thereby acknowledging the importance of content. Significantly, he made his remarks in the course of a graduation address, not of a treatise, His emphasis, as well as his virtual ommissions, must be understood in that light. And he does twice, if briefly, signal his concern for the meat of discourse. In a sort of meta-sense, the fact that he bothers to make a speech whose content is a brief presentation systematic remedial approach to what he sees as a widespread problem is a further proof that his concern is not exclusively for form. By calling attention to his perception that the content of most high school debate is unrigorous drivel, he is pointing out that what the spouting of that unrigorous drivel has replaced in the classroom is the development of the facility to reason. His method is extreme, but so is the problem.
This is my take on his meaning. Whether I agree or disagree with his approach is another matter, and falls outside my remarks.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, I'm only a quasi-literate Zilder (tautology, you say?), but I think the good professor's speech is very fishy. I would hardly recognise proper structure if it jumped up and bit me on the assumptive, so maybe I'm biased. That said, I feel that he undermined the validity of his point by taking to the extreme. Obviously, some grasp of good structure is necessary for expressing content in a meaningful way, but he went very much further than that. I was able to construct a few sentences using only those words (and I did wonder about the absence of the word "only" from the instructions), but felt that the results simply demonstrate that language is not exclusively form, any more than it's exclusively content. The sentences I created were devoid of meaning, and in my simple world language is a tool for conveying meaning. I'd rather have a home where the walls were a little bit higgledy-piggledy and the door hinges squeak than a perfectly built empty house, with absolutely everything engineered to millimetric precision, and no life allowed in to disturb its pristine structure. The professor can go back to his academic fishbowl, and I'll go back to writing sloppily constructed prose that makes sense to the only person who cares about it.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well said, bro ~ I'd rather be an aquatic mammal with a well-developed speech repertoire and not a grammarian despot in sight, so thanks for all the fish :)
As for you insel, you sound suspiciously like Berowne!
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addict
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the absence of the word "only"
He says, "Here ... are five words randomly chosen; turn them into a sentence." He does not say, "use them in a sentence," but "turn them" into a sentence. Does that not imply "only"?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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> turn them into a sentence well, I tried.... 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Max Q sez: in my simple world language is a tool for conveying meaning.
Sure, like the following:
(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
On snowing.
or this:
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
or this:
Mares eat oat and does eat oats
and little lambs eat ivy.
A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?
or this:
Boop Boop Diddim Daddum Waddum Choo!
Boop Boop Diddim Daddum Waddum Choo!
Boop Boop Diddim Daddum Waddum Choo!
And they swam and they swam right over the dam!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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> Does that not imply "only"?
Yes, Nancy, on rethinking that phrasing I think you're right - it does probably imply that doesn't it? But eta's point is all the more valid anyway, and we could spin those words around to make other patterns, na Vern? Of course it's at the cost of being a mere sequence of sounds - and I hope he's not going to pretend any of those sounds have inherent characteristics that identify them as particular 'parts of speech', because that only comes from their content...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Mav, if I didn't think you were mostly serious, I would almost say your hyperbole exceeded Fish's. You polemic almost seems to adhere to a more prescriptivist bent than that this imagined raving prescriptivist.
***
You haven't addressed the second sentence, which belies the imperative you insist upon in the first.
As to Berowne, tell me who that is, and I'll tell you why I disagree.
--insel-that's whiskey talk-peter
***
BTW, this Stanley Fish?
From the Chicago Sun Times (Sorry, tried to post it as a link, but it is on the cusp of Archive, and it just didn't go.)
It's his 'last chance to get it right'
April 25, 2005
BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter
Inside a small, utilitarian classroom on the University of Illinois at Chicago campus, Stanley Fish is concerned about this pressing question: What is truth? Or, more specifically, how one comes to believe what is true and what is false.
Fish, among the best-known English professors in the world, is teaching his last class as a full-time academic.
"This is about my last chance to get it right,'' he says.
Fish, who turned 67 last week, now plans to retire and move to a home he owns in Delray Beach, Fla., with his wife, Jane Tompkins, an English professor and special assistant to the provost.
To honor Fish's contributions to the school, UIC has started a lecture series in his name that kicks off today at 4 p.m. at the Student Center East, 750 S. Halsted.
In his class, Fish is discussing epistemology, the theory of knowledge. It is part of a course called "Religion, Citizenship and Identity,'' which analyzes how everyone from scientists and theologians draw their conclusions about truth.
On this particular day, Fish shows students a three-page essay he spent most of the day crafting that lays out his position on how he determines the truth.
Widely admired by students
Even though Fish has written hundreds of books and papers in his nearly 45-year career, his thoughts on the topic are constantly evolving. So much so that he now says he disagrees with a published paper he wrote just a few years ago. Now, he says while one's experience and upbringing influence what one believes to be true, they cannot be used as a reason to argue something is true, which he had claimed previously.
"I was making a big, big mistake,'' he admits.
His lecture is laced with academic-speak, such as when he called the students "miserably presentist'' when none catches his reference to the 1938 movie "Angels with Dirty Faces." And the discussion often hinges on nuances that are at times hard to grasp.
But the group of 14 students remains engaged, even as the course passes three hours in length. Students say Fish remains fascinating.
"He's very passionate about what he teaches,'' said Sebastian Anderson, 20, of Chicago. "Everyone I talk to likes Professor Fish,'' said Yelena Shagall, of Skokie. "They may get a bad grade, they may disagree, but they like him.''
In addition to his earlier opinions, Fish takes on his critics, who have made him a lightning rod in academia. One accused him of supporting terrorism because of his take on a poem by Milton, Fish's expertise. Fish says his critic "can't be right.''
The class also discusses a book that devotes many pages to disagreeing with Fish. The article and book are not the only ones to take on Fish: In the last 30 years, 200 articles and other publications have revolved around his writings.
Later, in his corner office in University Hall, Fish takes on his other critics, who thought he devoted too many resources in his five years as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to hiring "rock star'' professors. Those two dozen big name scholars -- coaxed away from places like Harvard, Yale and the University of Chicago -- drew six-figure salaries in a time the university was eliminating classes because of state budget cuts.
He notes that the vast majority of his faculty hires were young and also notes student rolls actually shrank by more than 10 percent during his tenure. But he admits he was unsuccessful convincing state politicians why the high- profile faculty were necessary.
"You are learning from people who are making the field,'' he said. "We were producing the kind of work that is paid attention to at other universities.
"That's huge. But you can see why someone in the state Legislature might have difficulty appreciating that.''
'Degrees worth a lot more now'
Students, however, do appreciate what he did.
"Our degrees are worth a lot more money now,'' said Shagall, 20.
His other controversial views include suggesting that tuition be doubled so as not to erode the quality of UIC and a suggestion that faculty "aim low'' by teaching students to be good learners but not necessarily committed citizens of a democracy.
Despite the controversies, Fish says he has no regrets.
"This has been a magnificent experience,'' he said.
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Pooh-Bah
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Yup, it's that Stanley Fish. Did you think there could be two of him? 
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