I have had the pleasure of receiving some feedback from readers this year, both positive and negative. I appreciate it all, and thank you very much for reading. However, I would like to respond to some of the criticism. All of it has focused on at least one of two issues: My columns lack strong arguments and/or are unnecessarily vulgar.
I agree these columns lack strong arguments and are often vulgar. This isn't much of a criticism though, because I write them for entertainment and reader empathy. Not everyone will be entertained or empathize, and that's fine with me. My logic is hazy and runny, my language often coarse and irritating. Some people remain unamused. This paper is the only college paper I know of that has a features column every day. It's not opinion, it's not news, it's not art, it's not food; it's a column in which a college kid gets to say what a college kid wants to say. Fortunately, this college features column is the only forum that my column comes close to being appropriate for, and I love taking advantage of the niche in which I currently reside.
In that spirit, here is a response that I wrote to someone who was disappointed with my incoherent rage last week. The person wrote that my column was unnecessarily vulgar, was pointless and sunk to a level that violent morons would appreciate. He mentioned that he was an English major looking to be an editor, and since people have implied that I'm not a very good English major to use such stilted and knobby prose, I did my best to write an absurd response. Be forewarned, it's a little bit pretentious and archaic and I would change a couple of things, but it wouldn't be a fair representation of my tossed-off snobbery.
Oh, jock-bashing and me in the same boat with the very beasts I do so fear and despise for their clamorous heathenry? Oh, heavens no!! Fie, fie, cruel villain that doth make mincemeat of me, rotten fruit that I am. Curse the heavens that I shall never be printed by this most illustrious and noble editor- to-be, who bursts with ken and savvy and wisdom from the very pores of his body of knowledge.
Would that I never did learn the foul words hinoceros dick."" Perhaps then might I be spared my cruel fate; for to rot ever after as an outcast, banned from the nourishing golden fields of the written English language, to spill my gorey bowels on the loathsome forest floor, which cares not for my offensive outpourings, though they nourish the lowly shrubs and jockery, is the most shame I fear could ever befall me.
Fie, fie, I say. This betides naught but evil for me, I fear. The warning has been sounded; ho, I do beckon and shall ever after recite the letters that I now know so well, j.p.m.u.r.n. For oft, lack of art will turn me to foulness and vulgarity, and these letters shall hearken me back to the wisdom imparted in those words. Though the meter and vocabulary be forgotten, the simple letters will recall the meat of the noble messenger's steed. Thank you from the bottom of my unworthy English major's heart.
See, I told you to be forewarned. I could have said it in prose more similar to what I usually write by quoting a wire that Hemingway sent to his boss, ""SUGGEST YOU UPSTICK BOOKS ASSWARDS.""
