Last week it was the Psych department chair’s triple negative.
This week it’s a dean’s … Well. Couple of things.
She’s responding to a reporter’s question about the man who committed suicide a few days ago on the steps of Memorial Church on Harvard’s quad.
“It’s really sad, it was horrible, and these kinds of incidents affect all of us really negatively,” Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds said in an interview yesterday. “This campus is situated in an urban context, and we can’t control these kinds of things.”
You tell me why there are Little Icks within Little Icks in these statements.
September 22nd, 2010 at 9:32AM
Both instances are speech, not writing, and reporters aren’t allowed to clean up quotes any more, so it’s hard to tell whether or not grammatical standards are declining.
September 22nd, 2010 at 9:40AM
Mr Punch: Little Icks are about speech as well as about writing.
September 22nd, 2010 at 10:51AM
Have you seen this man’s 2000-page suicide note? It was emailed out to seemingly all of academia in advance. It doesn’t seem like his death had anything to do with “urban contexts” except in the most abstract way.
September 22nd, 2010 at 11:01AM
Rita: I haven’t seen the suicide note, and I’ll admit that when I read of its length I really didn’t want to go there.
September 22nd, 2010 at 11:24AM
I skimmed when I got it over the weekend (I thought it was a bizarre joke until the Crimson ran his name today–you should see the CC list) and I think he read Nietzsche and critiques of modernity and concluded that the most philosophical thing to do to demonstrate the impossibility of rational liberalism is suicide? It’s insanely long, but the writing is surprisingly lucid.
September 22nd, 2010 at 11:26AM
Were the recipients mainly Harvard faculty and students? You make me want to look at it… Is it easy to get?
September 22nd, 2010 at 11:40AM
I’m really not impressed about this quote. It’s really sad that it’s so real.
September 22nd, 2010 at 2:21PM
See here. It’s, erm, different. He seems to have been obsessed with the Norman Conquest. It includes chapter headings like “The Seditious Genius of the Spiritual Penis of Jesus.” Make up your own mind.
September 22nd, 2010 at 2:40PM
Alan: Thanks. Rita also sent it to me, and I’ve read the last forty pages or so. I avoided the part you mention – sounded uninterestingly crazy — but the final section is interesting. I’ve been making some notes about it, and may post about it later today.