“And I’m like, ‘Well, here’s the thing…'”

I have long suspected--without a shred of evidence, mind you--that language is primarily expressive and emotive, and only later becomes semantic and descriptive. In other words, it's more music than dictionary. For instance, check out this fun interactive map, "The Emotions Recognized in Vocal Bursts," based on a study from American Psychologist. (Stay away from … Continue reading “And I’m like, ‘Well, here’s the thing…'” →

Confronting AI, Part the Third

"Good-Bye to All That" --Robert Graves "TL/DR" -- Anonymous One of the persuasive articles I use in class is, “It’s Time to Allow Doping in Sport,” by English sociologist Ellis Cashmore. Here’s the Introduction: The Lance Armstrong case forces us to consider a philosophical problem that has tormented sport since 1988 when Ben Johnson was disqualified from the … Continue reading Confronting AI, Part the Third →

Confronting AI, Part the Second

"Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideousthat even you turned from me in disgust?”―Mary Shelley, Frankenstein "You may ask yourself, 'Am I right, or am I wrong?'And you may say to yourself, 'My God! What have I done?'"--Talking Heads The road to writing hell, it seems, is paved with good intentions. I like … Continue reading Confronting AI, Part the Second →

Confronting AI, Part the First

In comes this email on my Higher-Ed.-In-Prison Google Groups listerv: "Wondering about the ways HEP can be both empowering and oppressive? Here's an AI-generated essay on the topic." "What Was I Scared Of?," Dr. Seuss Now, I've been laboring over an article on this same topic since January of 2020. Currently titled, "Liberators in Theory, Collaborators in … Continue reading Confronting AI, Part the First →

We Need to Talk About Brackets

Punctuation is politics. I've said it before. In a post on this blog titled, "We Need to Talk About Ellipses," I wrote, "[T]he basic job of the ellipsis is to fill in for a missing chunk of text in a direct quote. This gives it, along with the quotation mark, a certain moral weight–it’s punctuation … Continue reading We Need to Talk About Brackets →