Feb 28 2006
By Degrees
In my delusional youth, I not only assumed I’d go to college, but that I’d go to grad school, because that’s what you did. Dad had enough letters after his name to fill a bowl of alphabet soup, and Mom had enough for a cup.
I did go to college, but it wasn’t the incredible intellectual awakening I had envisioned. Not only did I discover almost immediately that I had no idea how to study, having coasted effortlessly through school, merrily collecting A’s as I went (I remember getting a 98 on a Latin test in high school, and my mother asking me “What happened to the other two percent?”), but that the actual point of school is to teach you how to work within The System and to get you a job that actually makes money, no matter how irrelevant your degree may be.
Mine couldn’t have been more irrelevant. I ended up drifting into a degree in linguistics, possibly one of the most pointless degrees ever invented. I realized too late that all you can do with a linguistics degree is get another one, and you won’t get paid all that much more. I saw my life vanishing into a haze of ever more arcane semantics, with the horror of teaching when the haze cleared. I didn’t want to teach. For one thing, I hated school, and for another, I can’t stand most people. The last thing I wanted was a room full of people staring at me and expecting wisdom from someone as widsom-free as Me.
I ended up getting a job in finance, and I’ve worked in that field (or swamp) ever since. I have never had a job that had anything to do with my degree, but I bet they wouldn’t have hired me without one. The System, you see.
What my degree really did for me, or to me, is to make me irrationally irritated by people saying things like, “It’s between him and I” or “I could care less”, and spelling/grammar errors in books, magazines, and newspapers. Lately I have come to hate the following expressions:
Big-time: As in, “Barry Bonds is an asshole, big-time.” Or, “You owe me, big-time.” Yet I am unperturbed by “Suzy is a big-time spender.” Go figure.
Bump, (variant: baby bump): As in, “Angelina Jolie proudly showed her bump” or “Katie Holmes’ baby bump seems to change size.”
Channel: As in, “Jamie Fox channels Ray Charles” or “The starlet channeled Edie Sedgwick, wearing capri pants and a mink jacket.” Change the channel, I’m begging you.
7 Responses to “By Degrees”
I’m like that when people use footmarks for apostrophes; acceptable from computers unless it’s something for print but definitely a disgrace when on a store sign. Oh, and any reference to a box?inside, outside, anywhere.
Ah, the things that drive us mad.
I’ll try not to say “big time” to you in any blog comments.
Have a nice day.
Cas
OMIGOD!! Any use of “…and I” when it should be “…and me” generally used because people think it makes them sound more high-falutin’ and all it’s doing is making me crazy!! BIG-TIME!! 😉
And we won’t even discuss the use of “irregardless” which drives me right up the proverbial wall!
Hahaha! I don’t really get annoyed at problematic grammar (probably because I make mistakes all the time– mostly misplacing hyphens, colons, parenthesis and ellipses, just like right now!)
I do, however, get immensely annoyed with repetition. If someone uses the same word more than two or three times in a short span of time, it drives me batshit.
I’m feeling very ignorant because I don’t really know what’s wrong with any of the phrases you highlighted, with the exception of “between him and I” ;)! Even though I’m 32 years old I still have to get my sister to proof-read any paper or important work I’ve had to write for work or school to make sure I haven’t made any glaring grammatical errors.
eh, if there are errors in that paragraph I don’t want to know :)!
I’m with Candi though, using the same word several times in a short span of time drives me insane, too!
My undergrad (engineering) was all about teaching you to think/problem solve and preparing you for your job… my (unusual) grad school is totally different however – it’s all about intellectual awakening! I was very surprised, expecting more job training really.
I always wondered what people with linguistics degrees went on to do. =)