The Horse After the Cart

April 29, 2008 – 4:19 pm

Eric and I just had a conversation about how to go about teaching composition without a thesis statement.  Now before Dr. Rice gives me an F for asking this question after an entire semester of composition pedagogy, let me contextualize my question.

I understand the limitations of the thesis statement and have no interest in defending it.  However, how do we practically ask (beginning) writers to define/specify their controlling idea without making a thesis statement?  Since we often write our way to a thesis statement, what particular guidance do we give our students in finding that nucleus around which their projects center and how will we (as instructors and as readers) know they have found it? 

Several possible answers–

Eric suggests that it will vary with the assignment–something we will need to include in our assignment sheets.  Also, just as fiction–which lacks a thesis statement–must answer the “So what?” question, so should student projects.

I think Patricia’s Keywords exercise would be another way of helping students arrive at their main ideas.

Preparing students with structured workshops is another way to ensure the audience is giving helpful feedback which in turn will help students answer the “So what?” question.

——

And now after a conversation with Patricia here in the writing lab, I’m a little more certain its something that will have to be tailored to a given assignment.  I guess if we’re asking students to throw out the cookie cutter, so will we.

I will be combing others’ syllabi for concrete examples, and welcome any ideas.  Again, this is NOT a pedagogy theory question–this is about finding functional ways of implementing the ideas we’ve been talking about all semester.

Posted in expectations, freshmen, composition, writing, pedagogy | 1 Comment »

Class Notes–Pedagogy Points

April 29, 2008 – 10:48 am

How are we “replacing” the thesis statement?  What are some parameters to keep writers from going all over the place?

Does the library offer tours, or do we do that ourselves?

Brock–<http://paganbabies.org/syl.html>  Theme: Codes; Blogging on non-assigned material, critiquing arguments, approach

Allyson–Bringing things together instead of taking them apart; How do you write a good personal narrative?  Each blog assignment builds sequentially to compose the major assignments; Rice’s policies–non-negotiable. Best American Essays 2007, edited by David Foster Wallace

Eric–<http://comp.missouri.edu/blogs/eathomas/2008/04/29/i-am-a-jackass/>  See his discourse on ethos, pathos, logos;

Patricia–http://comp.missouri.edu/blogs/louisamae1000/    Practice with keyword; choose their own space to write to address the myth of talent; Notes help bring ideas back together, center writer in specific areas of research; revision policy

———-

• Be very specific in the areas in which they can/may do research; don’t just talk process, but show process, walk them through the steps;
• Questions: Credit/no credit v. points; providing rationale for exercise;
• Canceling classes? One conference per semester, instructor go to conference, only in emergency
• Syllabus, 3 Assignment Sheets, and the Assignment I am doing; post online, email link to Dr. Rice
• Keep in mind award for freshman writing
• Keep teaching materials together to apply for teaching award
• See Teaching for technology award
• Remember Weblogs, Wiki, del.icio.us
• Remember deadlines for syllabus submission

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Great Expectations Go Both Ways

April 24, 2008 – 10:44 am

Oy. In case anyone was wondering, my absence from the blog is no indication of the quantity of comp-related thoughts in my head these days. Last night I was powering through a paper I’m preparing for a mini-conference on Friday with the help of my trusty coffee maker. As a result, my brain was racing well past lights-out. So what would a good instructor-in-training do with that quality think-time?

Prepare my first-day-of-class pep talk, of course! It was very impressive, I promise you, even if I’m struggling to recall a shred of it this morning.

Somewhere along the way I was thinking about something I picked up from an instructor at the business college where I taught last year–a clarification of expectations, if you will. One side of the sheet outlined what the instructor expected from the students and the other side listed what the students could expect from the instructor. My interest in this all-cards-on-the-table approach is probably linked to my despair at ever being a non-boring instructor, but all the same, I think there’s something to be said for a frank conversation about what a college class involves.

Here are some things I want to include–some of the items come from my own experience and others come from ideas I’ve gleaned from syllabi in the the Writing Lab.

What You Can Expect from Your Instructor

• Well-prepared lessons that will support you in your short-term and long-term academic goals.
• Thoughtful, respectful responses to your ideas and work, as well as an awareness that your work belongs to you.
• No trick questions.
• ???

What Your Instructor Will Expect from You

• Respect for your fellow students, your instructor, and our learning environment by arriving on time and prepared to participate. This includes turning off cell phones and pagers. Consult with your instructor before class if you are expecting an emergency call.
• Professionalism in class discussions and on-line postings. Professionalism is expressed by critiquing ideas instead of people, avoiding name-calling or put-downs, and using discretion in your on-line communications. In e-mails, address the recipient by name, write in complete sentences, and be sure to sign your own name at the end.
• Ownership of your work. This means that you will think creatively about how the activities in this class can support your own career goals, and that you will take responsibility for your own success or failure. Do not expect anyone else to care more about your work than you do.
• ???

I’m well aware that these expectations are weighted heavily in one direction. Given the fact that a college class is not a democracy, maybe that’s okay. I’ll continue to refine this list over the summer, although I don’t want it to extend beyond five points. Something I won’t include on the list, but have learned by experience is to repeat, repeat, repeat. SOME ONE will be sure to be distracted when I give instructions or loose the syllabus or forget the URL. I can’t change that, but I can be sure I’ve given instructions/reminders at least three times.

What are some expectations that you wish had been clarified on your first day of college?

Posted in good faith, expectations, business college, composition, pedagogy, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Wiki: Not Just for Writing

April 16, 2008 – 5:10 pm

As we’ve discussed in class, loading readings on Comp 1000 students can be counter-productive.*   Today I skimmed part of an article linked to the NCTE newsletter, “Review Essay: Learning to Read as Continuing Education” by David Jolliffe, published in the 2/07 issue of College Composition and Communication.  What I’ve pulled from the article that I want to think about replicating in my class is collaborative reading (see pages 486-87).

Collaborative reading challenges the simplistic expectations that many new college students bring to texts they study: in the same way they want hard and fast rules that will assure them of an A+++ paper, they also search for the one right interpretation of a text.  Jolliffe quotes Kathleen Yancey in Teaching Literature as Reflective Practice:

 [T]he delivered curriculum (over)relies on students’ playing a singular role: as it is conventionally played, the school game, which spins off from the delivered curriculum, asks students to tell us what they know, not what they don’t know.  It rewards students for strongly asserting their claims to knowledge, typically represented in thesis-and-support format (486).

Yancey describes one particular method of collaborative reading as a “pop-up palimpset” which I think is especially well-suited to a wiki format.  To help students think about the connections in a given poem or essay, post the text to a wiki, then invite students to make comments, ask questions, and note extra-textual connections in pop-up boxes.  Not only does this kind of reading help students learn how to “read more complexly,” but also

Pop-ups can show multiple stories, which helps students shift from the single thesis-and-support reading…to more sophisticated reading.  This approach cultivates an intertextuality new to most students, one in which the stories of popular culture contextualize those of literature–and vice versa (487).

I don’t have any especially challenging texts planned for my class, but I think this strategy could be useful even for non-Derrida material since it would help prepare students for scholarly articles they will encounter in their research.  As the article points out, most first-year college students have not had a reading class since eighth grade; therefore, we would do well to consider their level of reading readiness as they begin four years of reading college textbooks and writing research papers.

*Of course, this will not be the consensus once they hit grad school.

Posted in reading, literacy, freshmen, composition, writing, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Bonus Book Review

April 13, 2008 – 10:20 pm

Something about the small size and the insider information promised by the title drew me to They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. It also helped that a number of composition instructors recommended it as well. This weekend I finally read through the concise 181- page volume and here are a few observations.

• Although one might understandably surmise that a book promoting dozens of templates for scholarly writing would epitomize a choke-hold on creativity, I found no such desire on the part of the authors. Instead, they reveal the sacred codes of academic discourse with the stated intent that students will grow beyond such conscious choices.
• In order to move this process along, the authors first demonstrate explicit uses of these frames and then compare these selections with texts that use frames implicitly. For example, “They say _______________, but I say________________” is the basic format for introducing one’s argument into an existing conversation. However, the myriad ways this can be altered include “It is commonly believed that__________, but research finds __________” or “My instructors imply _____________, but I have found that __________.”
• Using Burke’s parlor analogy, the authors continually emphasize the conversational element of academic writing–that effective writing engages with what has come before and clarifies why it is relevant to a given audience.
• The book offers a compelling approach to considering alternative views. Instead of asking students to argue against their initial argument, they are asked to make-believe they are their opponent (as if they are actors playing a villain in a movie) and imagine what their opponent would think/say. Such an approach encourages students to address alternative views without undermining the validity of their own beliefs (unless, of course, the make-believe sucks them in and they change their minds).
• Each chapter concludes with two exercises: one asks students, usually in a collaborative effort, to identify given “moves” within a text; the second asks students to identify such moves in their own writing.
• The book’s tone is engaging, thoughtful but not condescending.

Even though I have picked up many of the suggested moves by osmosis during the course of my academic life, this book is one I will certainly return to as a reference for my future writing projects–specifically, techniques for including the personal/colloquial in scholarly writing. It seems that the struggle of writing is not so much the absence of ideas, but the ability to communicate those ideas meaningfully. This reality is evidenced by many students in the writing lab who can easily speak about a given topic, but are stumped by the prospect of reducing those words to paper. They Say, I Say helps students consider the many ways they can can present those ideas clearly, engagingly, and with a minimum of mental anguish.

____________

Word on the street is that Dr. Rice has a somewhat different perspective on this book. I’d love to hear that side as well.

Posted in voice, textbooks, composition, writing, pedagogy, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Adjuncts Bad for Business?

April 6, 2008 – 11:58 am

The April 4th edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article, Keep Adjuncts Away From Intro Courses, Report Says. (Available via MU Libraries’ subscription to LexisNexis Academic if the link doesn’t work.) It offers evidence that the corporatized university’s heavy reliance on temporary, part-time instructors sabotages the institution’s goals of retaining freshmen and high graduation rates.

About two-thirds of the way through the article we learn that the higher drop-out/transfer rates aren’t due to inherent deficiencies on the part of adjuncts, but rather because so many adjuncts lack adequate resources such as office space. Additionally, adjuncts generally teach at multiple schools, requiring them to divide their time between several locations, making them less accessible to students. (And what about low morale, I wonder. Does an employer bear any responsibility for that?) As proof that adjuncts aren’t any less qualified, the report shows that courses taught by graduate students (and full-time faculty) correlate with higher student retention rates.

So what does this mean for us? I’d like to think that big, bad corporatizing wolves will repent and see the error of their ways and by the time we finish our degrees, the academic job market will be sunny with opportunity. Right…that assumes they give a darn about evidence.

Donna Strickland presented a project at the CCCC conference this past week, looking at the ways the academic community talks about the economic aspects of tenure and salary. (I think I got that right–it’s been a few weeks since I heard a preview of it.) So often academics in English back away from those scary “numbers” issues, but is that working? As a student, it’s tempting to think that “someone” who knows the territory is fighting on behalf of those of us coming along, but I’m not sure that’s the case. We are given tools to become more academically competitive–which is extremely important–but I wonder who is doing more than pointing out the problem of the corporate university and taking action?

Or should these conditions be permitted to persist in order to “discipline” graduate students into choosing a different career path? As obvious as that appears to someone well versed in the dynamics of the academy, it is unreasonable to expect incoming graduate students to have access to that same information–especially when those prospective grad students who cannot bear the thought of a life time of copy-and-fax jobs are grasping long-awaited acceptance letters presumably sent by those qualified to determine who is likely to be successful in the field.

Has good faith gone the way of type writers and quill pens?

I’m not sure what exactly the action beyond the rhetoric should look like, but to assume that a more competitive academic marketplace is merely a natural selection process and not a dimension of growing anti-intellectualism that undervalues the production of knowledge seems foolhardy at best, and disastrous at worst.

Posted in good faith, anti-intellectualism, graduate school, tenure, adjunts, composition, freshmen, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Grammar Headaches

April 3, 2008 – 5:42 pm

Over the course of the semester I’ve discovered the main source of my frustration during my 9 months of teaching at a business college last year. I was assigned a textbook–English the Easy Way by Barons–which can be described in three words: grammar, grammar, grammar. And did I mention there was a mandatory spelling test?

Yet inspite of my clever diagrams and attempts to vary the curriculum, I was nearly always profoundly disappointed in the minimal progress made between the diagnostic test and the final.

It’s not that I had any illusions of a dramatic transformation. As I introduced the topic in the first class periods, I compared good grammar to muscle-building: it happens over an extended period of time; we celebrate progress but don’t expect instant change. In every class period I incorporated writing assignments and assigned readings to prompt discussions of rhetorical strategies. There was no presumption that these students were preparing for academic writing, but I hoped that at least they would acquire a sense of agency in their ability to write.

Some students revealed an ability for vivid expression and rich narratives. Some of the most creative writers had the hardest struggle to compose in standard English or to use punctuation. (Side note: I wonder if part of the “freshness” of their writing was because they had had so little exposure to clichéd writing structures?)  But no matter how much I would have loved to see them further develop their writing abilities, I had to pull myself back to the grammatical basis of the course.

So now that I have “Grammar, Grammar, and the Teaching of Grammar” and thoroughly repented of my rigid ways, I think back to what I might have done differently. I also think ahead, given the likelihood I will be teaching this course again this summer. The school encourages the use of outside materials, but I’m not sure how well I could convince them to nix the textbook altogether.  And I’m not sure if they should, given that the students are NOT entering into a scholarly discourse.  They are being prepared for administrative assistant jobs where e-mail etiquette is more relevant than analytical skills (as it relates to writing).

But at the same time, these reasons do not negate the studies that show inconclusive results for the teaching of grammar.  Maybe a good approach would be to use a business writing textbook.  However, the course I’d be teaching is actually preparation for a composition course.  My job is to get their grammar straight so they can actually get down to writing in a later course.

I’d love to hear any ideas on how I might fulfill the grammar instruction requirement while actually teaching something that will stick.  If nothing else, I’d like if this course would be a dry run for projects I’ll inflict on students this fall.

Posted in textbooks, business college, pain, writing, grammar, pedagogy, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Audio books and rhetoric

April 1, 2008 – 10:51 am

• Step 1. Pick Entertainment. Research. Find 4-5 main points
• Step 2: Personal. Locate personal anecdote. Flesh out. Expand.
• Step 3. Discipline. Research. Find 4-5 main points
• Step 4: What is the pattern?

Audio books

Publishers Phase Out Piracy Protection on Audio Books

By BRAD STONE

SAN FRANCISCO — Some of the largest book publishers in the world are stripping away the anticopying software on digital downloads of audio books.

The trend will allow consumers who download audio books to freely transfer these digital files between devices like their computers, iPods and cellphones — and conceivably share them with others. Dropping copying restrictions could also allow a variety of online retailers to start to sell audio book downloads.

The publishers hope this openness could spark renewed growth in the audio book business, which generated $923 million in sales last year, according to the Audio Publishers Association.

—–

How to enjoy audiobooks

Last week, the New York Times ran a piece on whether or not listening to audiobooks and reading printed books was the same activity. Despite the debate surrounding it, as a fan of both printed books and audiobooks, it read largely like old book snobs fighting new technology.

———-

FreeAudio.org

Welcome to FreeAudio.org! We provide free audio books for you to download and enjoy.

FreeAudio.org is a new concept in the distribution of audio books. Books are free for all to download. In fact, you can take the books off of FreeAudio.org and post them on your website or share them through your favorite file sharing service. It is all perfectly legal and permissible - in fact, we encourage you to do just this.

————

Amateur Audio Books Catch Fire on the Web [Librivox on NPR]
Day to Day, February 1, 2006 · Literature fans looking for something beyond Oprah Winfrey’s book club are discovering a new kind of club on the Internet — Web sites that offer audio versions of books, voiced by fans instead of professional voice actors.

Like many other Web-based phenomena, the popularity of the amateur audiobooks has led to an odd type of fame for some of the people behind those voices.

————–

When I was young, I listened to audio books while washing dishes and doing other household chores. I borrowed them from the public library’s limited selection, and listened to them either on a personal cassette player or a small tape recorder. It was years before we advanced to a stereo in our house. I was bored with the music available to me, so audio books were a natural extension of reading. Plus, a lot of the readers had British accents which was about the extent of my exposure to high culture.

—————–

Discipline Area

One of my interests is the rhetoric of civic discourse, particularly as it relates to public policy

—————–

Toward a Civil Discourse: Rhetoric and Fundamentalism, by Sharon Crowley. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006. 256 pp. 130-33

Reviewed by Brenda Glascott, University of Pittsburgh

Pioneering books bear a heavy burden – they suggest the range of work yet to be done but cannot do it all themselves. Sharon Crowley’s Toward a Civil Discourse: Rhetoric and Fundamentalism is no exception to this predicament. In her latest book, Crowley analyzes Christian fundamentalist rhetoric, arguing that it threatens the civil discourse necessary to democracy. Crowley is convincing in her argument that American civic discourse has reached an impasse that arises from the hostility, suspicion, and dismissiveness which characterize relations between fundamentalist and liberal rhetors. As a solution, she argues that the field of rhetoric needs to be “rehabilitated”; she believes that by recovering ancient rhetorical concepts that address emotion and affect, liberal rhetors will find the means to engage fundamentalist Christians in dialogue. Revitalizing modern rhetorical study and practice, Crowley believes, will revitalize civic discourse, making possible rhetorical engagements with Christian apocalyptists – Crowley’s name for fundamentalist Christians who ascribe to a literal belief in an approaching apocalypse.

—————–

On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse

by Aristotle, George A. Kennedy. 336 pgs.

Read the complete book On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse by becoming a questia.com member. Choose a membership plan to an academic-level library with more than 67,000 full-text books, 1.5 million articles, an entire reference set with a dictionary, encyclopedia, thesaurus plus a collection of digital tools to organize your information.

——————–

From a Louisiana Professor’s Blog

Call for Papers

The 2007 Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) conference invites proposals on civic discourse, feminisms, and rhetorics. The conference draws its inspiration from the 50th anniversary of the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School, the Clinton Presidential Library, Heifer Project International & the Clinton School for Public Service.

This conference asks us to explore civic discourse and how civic discourse, feminism(s) and rhetoric(s) interact with, for, and against each other.

• What is civic discourse? What counts as civic discourse?
• How has civic discourse changed over the years for women? For feminism?
• What does it mean to participate in civic discourse in the 21st century?
• How do we participate in civic discourse?
• How has the internet/electronic discourse affected civic discourse?
• How has civic discourse become corporatized?
• How has globalization impacted civic discourse?
• What does it mean to be a feminist and/or rhetorician participating in civic discourse?

We look forward to reading proposals from a wide variety of disciplines, including, but not limited to, history, ethics, new media, political science, social justice, pedagogy, law, literature, art and art theory, queer theory, international studies, cultural studies, race studies, economics, environmental studies, science, social activism, communication studies, technical communication, visual design, philosophy, and engineering.

———–
Frustrated debaters, try a little rhetoric

Lynn Swanbom
The Spokesman-Review
March 20, 2008

Among complaints that American culture is image-obsessed and flouts the finer nuances of literacy, words still mean something here on the editorial pages. There’s nothing like a political cartoon to offend, simultaneously, adherents of all political persuasions – but when it comes to offending people through sheer verbiage, look no further than our letters section.

Freedom of speech is freedom to offend. The First Amendment wouldn’t be necessary if all speech were always welcome. That it “might offend someone” is never a sole criterion for rejecting a letter for publication. In the world of opinion, there is very little that could be said without offending someone. Political discourse is not for the thin of skin.

—————

The Pattern - TBA

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Class Notes

April 1, 2008 – 10:13 am

Presenter: Brock, “From Analysis to Design” by Diana George and “Gregory Ulmer”

Why academic resistance to visual cultural?

-literacy rates rising in 19th century
-rise in print culture
-elitism
-eliminating plasticity in language
-brief digression into linguistics and grammar and resistance to standard usage

Why is there a need in composition to recreate in a new medium what took place in the old?

-is visual literacy less critical than reading?
-Comic Life, installed in new Macs
-Assessment: the clearer you are with your expectations, the more likely you are to get what you want

Web page design; the logic of facilitating ease of use

-Google: Websites that suck
-Gaia
-Requiem for a Dream

Is there a lesson about production here? What does this teach us in our own writing

-recognize our goals
-show how our organizing effects our goals

LARGE TEXT (movie)
\/
NEW TEXT => Content makes reader understand; presents in a new medium, so it is not the larger text

format satire
sound mixed media (ads, article)
characters exposition
images/shots persuasion
themes/moods

—————–

Presenter: Rebecca; “Virtual Urbanism” by Geoffrey Sirc and “Made Not only in Words” by Kathleen Blake Yancey

Why does the underlife/undercurrent image persist?
-being oppositional is more pleasurable
-Foucault’s history of sexuality, we talk about how much we repress sexuality
-Is writing online underlife and mainstream

What is our role in teaching Comp 1000
-keeping attention
-teaching how to use their current skills to analyze other texts

See Wu Tang Manual
-research is not just going to the library, but also referencing knowledge you already have

-what is the method behind what we do?

——————–

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1976

March 18, 2008 – 10:46 am

 

 

Images of Afghanistan in 1976-78
by Douglas R. Powell

http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/GeoImages/Powell/powellafghan.html

Kabul, Afghanistan
	A full-length veil and gown, the chadri, is necessary out-of-the-house apparel for many Moslem women. This was dying out in the 1970’s, but was restored by the ruling Taliban after 1996.

—–

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 1,099 convicted murderers have been executed in the United States. (As of Apr 1, 2008)

Of those executed, 11 were female. (The last was Frances Elaine Newton in Texas on September 14, 2005).

Of those executed, 22 were under the age of 18 at the time of the murder. (The last was Scott Allen Hain in Oklahoma on April 3, 2003).

Of those executed, 630 (57%) were white and 377 (34%) were black.

Of those executed: 929 (85%) were executed by lethal injection, including 443 of the last 448 executions.
154 were executed by electric chair (The last was Daryl Holton in Tennessee on September 12, 2007).
11 were executed by gas chamber (The last was Walter LeGrand in Arizona on March 3, 1999).
3 were executed by hanging (The last was Billy Bailey in Delaware on January 25, 1996).
2 were executed by firing squad (The last was John Albert Taylor in Utah on January 27, 1996).

Executions were held in 33 different states: 405 (37%) were in Texas and 19 were in Indiana.

http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/usexecute.htm

—————-

Bush acknowledges 1976 DUI charge

November 2, 2000
Web posted at: 11:00 p.m. EST (0400 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

WEST ALLIS, Wisconsin — Texas Gov. George W. Bush acknowledged Thursday that in 1976 he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol near his parents’ home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/02/bush.dui/

———————

1976: Fear of a great plague

By PAUL MICKLE / The Trentonian

On the cold afternoon of February 5, 1976, an Army recruit told his drill instructor at Fort Dix that he felt tired and weak but not sick enough to see military medics or skip a big training hike.

Within 24 hours, 19-year-old Pvt. David Lewis of Ashley Falls, Mass., was dead, killed by an influenza not seen since the plague of 1918-19, which took 500,000 American lives and 20 million worldwide.

http://www.capitalcentury.com/1976.html

——————-

Archives: Banished Words 1976

At This Point in Time - Why not say “now,” or “today?” Typical Delay-by-Elongation, giving subject at press conference time to think up plausible lie, e.g. “At this point in time we are, err, mmmmm, unaware of the allegation that the earth is round.” -Queen Isabella.

Meaningful - Has lost all of its meaningfulness.

Input - Has unfortunately replaced “contribution.” Often used in combination; as “meaningful input.”

Scenario - Spread like wildfire after Watergate. It can be roughly translated as “I don’t know what had happened (or will happen) but this is a scenario.” Means: “I’m making this up.” Also used when reporter doesn’t want to use “according to unimpeachable source.”

Detente - Invented by Henry Kissinger. Nobody else knows what it means, and now even Kissinger has forgotten. [Before the year was out the president of the United States also banished “detente.” Later, voters banished Kissinger and the president.]

Dialogue - and its other form Meaningful Dialogue. Neither has meaning remaining in it.

Macho - Seldom pronounced properly and therefore lacks meaningfulness.

Implement and Viable - Gobbledygook disguised as intelligence: as in “that is not a viable alternative which we can implement.” Meaning: “We don’t want to do it and think you have a crazy idea here.”

Call for Resignation - Of all sports reporter who fail to state clearly in the lead: The winner and the score.

(NOTE: The only police powers of the Unicorn Hunters is to make violatore members of the Unicorn Hunters and then excommunicate them; or, to “put the pips” on the offender. (Printed post card pip forms are available at the packet with instructions.) Final punishment is banishment to Neebish Island in the St. Mary’s River near Sault Ste. Marie, or Zug Island in the lower Dertroit River (which is sometimes difficult to find because of industrial smog and oil slick).

1976 RESTORATION: Mugient - meaning “to low or bellow, as a cow.” Word fell into disuse in 17th century. Unicorn Hunters support its revival. It was most appropriate for use in 1976 as an election year.

http://www.lssu.edu/banished/archive/1976.php

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