So because of biting off more than I could chew last semester I ended up dropping English 101. My professor then was a little, old white guy who knew EVERYTHING about English, and was a very entertaining speaker speaker to boot. Unfortunately for me, he also had very, very high expectations out of his students. I was spending nearly 12 hours a week on his class alone :-(. Having to choose between C’s in all my classes (Including English), or A’s and B’s in all my classes while making English 101 up another semester… I ended up taking English 101 in the Winter semester.
So yesterday I found myself face to face with the ‘easiest’ professor according to ratemyprofessor.com. I was amazed at this guy with this white man and his half beard and nasal voice. He’s funny, and very self involved.. but a great entertainer over all.
After sitting through 2 of his classes I thought I’d mention a few things I’ve picked up from him over the 4 hours I’ve been around him:
writing is apparently spelled writting in his class
he once referred to an abusee who wouldn’t leave the abuser and said, “Even as things got worser and worser she wouldn’t leave him…”
He wrote every nite on the board.. refering to the (night) i’m used to.. I guess the gh gets lost somewhere…
He has dropped the S word the F word and the D word.. immediately following with profuse apologies..
And he speaks Spanish to help Explain English to some of the students.. (wow.. good job on learning spanish ((he is Caucasion)) but should we really be encouraging this?)
so… take that as you want it. Just figured you MIGHT get a kick out of it like I have.
LOL !!!Wow! Wher wass hee wen i waas in scole. I mite have maid beter tdan a “B”.
So what other classes are you taking?
Love you
I am glad you are enjoying your English class. Your professor sounds like a very interesting man. I, too, have often thought about the spelling of some of our words and how utterly preposterous some of them are spelled. Take “plumbing” for example. What kind of NUT would put a b in the word? It serves no purpose. How about the word “telephone”? Why put a ph in the word? If you want it pronounced like an F, just spell it telefone. That makes much more sense.
I am very tempted to spell words like they sound instead of the accepted spelling except that I work in a professional world and I am expected to write professionally and spell correctly.
Someone, someday, really needs to revamp how we spell some of our words.
No, we don’t need to revamp our language to make school easier. We just need to teach people to understand the origins of the English language.
For example, “plumbing” comes from the Latin word for lead – plumbum. Its symbol on the periodic table is Pb. Why lead? Because historically, pipes were made of lead – from Roman times until the 19th century. Why change the spelling when you can learn a bit of history and science instead? Do you expect physicists to revise the periodic table in order to dumb things down for you?
And, if you pronounce the word properly, really think about how it sounds, you’ll find that the “b” sound IS there – it isn’t pronounced “plumming”.
And “telephone”? Break it into its Latin roots – “tele” (distant/far) and “phone” (sound). Makes sense now, doesn’t it? That’s “phone” as in “phonetic” and “phoneme”. There is no Latin word “fone”, so that doesn’t make any sense, and tells you nothing of the root or history of the word. Why is it a “ph” instead of an “f”? Because the Greek letter “phi” is represented in English as a “ph”, not an “f”, that’s why. There is no Greek “f”, and words with Greek origins, like “phone”, start with a “phi”, not an “f”. Really…
Russian has no “f” in its alphabet. The sound “ph” is represented by a “phi”, identical to the Greek character, the one you see on the front of a fraternity house. Do you suppose the Russians wonder why we have 2 characters to represent the same sound? Well, at one time they didn’t, but that’s another story.
Have you NO appreciation for etymology? Please! Respect your language, and accept its idiosyncrasies. Don’t complain about the complexities of English. Just make a study of etymology, perhaps a Latin class or two, maybe learn a foreign language (I took French, Latin, and Russian in high school and college) and then spelling becomes a snap – educate yourself!
English is a beautiful, highly complex and expressive language. Leave it alone, thanks.
My grandma would say “someone here is too big for his britches”. =)