Richard Mitchell
Twenty-odd years ago, Richard Mitchell, a professor at New Jerseyâ€™s Glassboro State College, set out on a quixotic pursuit: the rescue of the English language and the minds of those attached to the world by it. Donning cape and mask as â€œThe Underground Grammarian,â€ Mitchell sallied forth upon his newsletter against the nonsense being spoken, written, and, indeed, encouraged by the educational establishment. (â€œOne thing led to another,â€ as he tells it, â€œa front page piece in ,The Wall Street Journal,, a proÃžle in ,Time,, and other such. Before it was over, ,The Underground Grammarian, came to be, in the world of desktop printing, the Ãžrst publication to have subscribers on every continent except Antarctica.â€) What began as a vivid catalog of ignorance and inanity in the written work of professional educators and their hapless students soon became an enterprise of most noble moment: an investigation, via mordant wit and Ãžerce intelligence, of â€œwhat we might usefully decide to mean by â€˜education.â€™â€ The results of Mitchellâ€™s inquiries are as stimulating today as they were when Ãžrst articulated. His project remains a telling explication of how, through writing, we discover thought and make knowledge. It is certainly the most drolly entertaining.
Humanities,Language,Education,Nonfiction,Academic,Academia,Writing,Essays,Language,Writing
The Leaning Tower Of Babel And Other Affronts By The Underground Grammarian