D has recently been taking a number of courses at a variety of local universities for the purposes of getting a new degree. I applaud her for this. As a university drop-out, due to a variety of circumstances, I think anyone who sticks it out is worthy of all the laurels they can reap (can you reap laurels?) The number of friends I have currently who have obtained their doctorates is a figure that frequently causes my mind to seize up when trying to remember which particular friends have attained this status.
Anyway, a lot of her courses have been sociological in nature. She frequently asks me to edit her papers for her, because for all D's brilliance and capability in hammering out exactly what her teachers want, her skill with spelling and grammar are inversely proportionate. This is not a criticism, simply a statement of fact. D can write me under the table, and does so frequently. She is prolific and talented and full of good ideas. However, I have compiled a compendium of amusing misspellings she has made that one day I intend to publish, if in fact I ever get to the point of writing them down.
In editing these sociological papers, I have come to the conclusion that sociologists, as a group, need to stop FUCKING with my language.
My mom's going to cuss me out for that one.
Sociologists seem to be in the habit of routinely creating new words, or re-purposing existing ones in order to coin terms that individually only one sociologist can own. This in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, and ensures that certain research is effectively owned by the person who did the work, but the frequency with which sociologists do so, and the sorts of words they choose to defile, makes any word they touch or create an absolutely meaningless nonsense pile of gibberish. (ah, synathroesmus)
I'll give you an example. Parentalization. Ostensibly its meaning is "The moment when a child realizes that he/she is becoming his/her parent(s)"
Why does this need a term? And why does it have to be such a stupid term? This is a term that I guarantee was gestated in the sweaty fires of a drunken stupor, fermented in lack of sleep, and was ultimately adopted via the same process P. Diddy (Is he still called P. Diddy? I lost track the same way everyone lost track of "&" or whatever he is calling himself now) makes music, or a catbird avoids the trouble of raising its own offspring. "Screw it. I'm done. I'm going to jam 'parent' together with 'realization' and call it a goddamned day. Nobody will notice anyway. Now hand me a beer."
Here's another example: Individualization. I'm not kidding when I say that one of the definitions is: "The consequence of social changes in late modernity in which individuals are increasingly required to construct their own lives."
Read that to yourself again. Okay. Now digest that. What is it actually saying? Wait for it... there you go! That's right. It's saying that people need to figure out who the hell they are because of changes in society, more often than they might like.
Really? How long did it take sociologists to come up with that gem? I should call Captain Obvious, because even he would be floored by disingenuity of that definition. Should I start coining stuff too? Here's one: "Azuration: the process by which someone realizes the sky is blue." Or another: "Urination: coming to the understanding that everybody pees." Or: "Hungrification: from time to time, people need to eat."
Now, D is required to write essays on this stuff, and I'm required due to my position as her loving spouse and father of her child to read them and edit them. But I can tell you after any ten pages of sociological etymology, the mind literally becomes mush. Not only do they squirt out word abortions with the same glee most of us reserve for popping bubble wrap, but they do so in such volume that any rational mind is quickly reduced to paste. By the end of the last essay of hers that I read, I found myself unable to make words with my mouth. Being verbose by nature, this was for me the equivalent of suddenly finding myself unable to use a spoon, or open a door. Words literally ceased to have meaning. I had to go and stare at my phone for thirty minutes before I found myself able to comprehend what "slide to unlock" meant. D didn't notice, as she was printing out her essay.
The fact that I was mind-locked by a sociological paper when half my day job requires me to explain complex concepts like amortization and debt ratio to the sorts of people who cannot by themselves subtract fifty from one hundred and come up with a round number is by itself an accomplishment. Not a good one, but an accomplishment nonetheless.
4 comments:
Heh. At first I was thinking, "but neuroscience makes up words all the time, too--that's just what happens when you research new things." But it's not the same. You're right, these words are ridiculous. At least neuroscience is making up names for actual things that we don't have words for.
The best joke pulled on literary theory was deconstruction by Herrida. Or, look up semiotics, or ontology or hermeneutics. Whenever I present at a conference I have to write the current popular definitions on my hand, so I can answe questions that include them. How about "interiorization," or "anti-historicity" These are words designed to demonstrate that you belong to a club, one of members who claim to understand the meanings of those words. Fortunately many of these words don't survive very long in the fickle world of academic fashion, because there are always up-and-comers ready to throw down the bastions of those that have gone before -- and usually come up with something equally impenetrable. LFYM
It's not so much impenetrable as inane. I just can't believe people spend time and money researching this sort of thing. It's a self-propagating meme, at best, a fad that internally reinforces sociology as a valid "scientific" discipline, when in fact they seem to mainly spend their time researching what is essentially common sense. Hitting your kids is bad for them. People spend a lot of time on their cell phones. Being alone sucks. You probably won't get along with your siblings from time to time.
And then they fabricate some sort of bullshit phrase to try and hide the fact that they've spent time trying to prove what any third grader knows is true in order to pass it off as actual work.
It's like they're trying to write children's books for adults, but lack the part of the brain that tells them most people can parse out that you're trying to tell them "stealing is bad" from "forceful removal of an individual's property (whether it be physical, monetary, or intellectual) by another individual, for the purposes of that individual's net gain, can have a net negative effect on both parties, given the loss (emotionally, monetarily, or otherwise) to the first party, and the potential consequences (decreased sense of self worth, legal sanctions, requirement to live outside of socially acceptable norms) for the second party."
It's just stupid. And you can quote me on that. With quotations.
Oh, this one had me chuckling out loud. Literary theorists do it as well. Gender studies anyone? Don't get me started. I have to learn made-up words in not one, but two languages. And just for shits and giggles, they make them completely different in both languages half the time.
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