Don’t Oppress My People With Your Departmental Acronyms

If I had to draw a chart of “wokeness of institutions” vs “quality of art” I believe there would be a very strong correlation. Though not in the direction the institutions think it would be.

If I had to draw a chart of “wokeness of institutions” vs “quality of art” I believe there would be a very strong correlation. Though not in the direction the institutions think it would be.
Well, it does seem clear that farcical posturing is deemed more important, and statusful, for the educator, than the routine work of actually imparting skills and knowledge. Even of simple and relevant words. And all of this posturing requires time and focus and resources that could be directed elsewhere.

the director, Sam Bass, told the network.
“The use of so many acronyms within the educational field often tends to alienate those who may not speak English to understand the acronym.”
And yet, the ability to communicate in comprehensible English does not appear to have held Sam back in any way. What, precisely, would it mean to “Speak English to understand the acronym”? To speak the kind of English required to understand the acronym? The quality of English? The broken English of the director of an Arts Department?
Surely the point of acronyms is to make the language accessible even to e.g. morons? Which one would have thought would greatly appeal to SFUSD.

If I had to draw a chart of “wokeness of institutions” vs “quality of art” I believe there would be a very strong correlation.

Alternatively…

In fairness, “Arts Department” is a better name than one that’s only a hair’s breadth from “vapid”. If this latest fad means fewer smartarse acronyms, I’m not going to complain too much.
But it won’t, of course. What it’ll actually mean is the great rich tapestry of the English language being reduced to the level of Thing Explainer.
Charles Kay Ogden was way ahead of both of these though, coming up with Basic English in 1925. His motivations were considered the height of enlightened forward thinking at the time:

Ogden was convinced that the world needed to gradually eradicate minority languages and use as much as possible only one, English in either a simple or complete form. A widely known 1933 book on this is a science fiction work on history up to the year 2106 titled The Shape of Things to Come by H. G. Wells. In this work, Basic English is the inter-language of the future world, a world in which after long struggles a global authoritarian government manages to unite humanity and force everyone to learn it as a second language.

Force ’em, d’you hear? It’s for their own good.

‘SFUSD’ is not an acronym ….
And acronym is set of letters that are pronounceable as a word.
‘SFUSD’ is pronounced S.F.U.S.D.

“‘SFUSD’ is not an acronym ….”
Unless they’re actually calling it “Sfuss-dee”.

An[d] acronym is [a] set of letters that are pronounceable as a word
Well, sir, I beg to differ. Most dictionaries define an acronym as being prounounced as a word. Hence SFUSD. Or more correctly in this case SFUSDAD. Whose illiterate director is Sam Bell – the SFUSDADAD. Pronounced “sfusdadad”.
You may prefer to consider it to be a mere abbreviation or initialism. Like the BBC. Pronounced “Bee Bee See”. An initialism of the “Big Black Cock”.
NALOPKT YW.

or an American to another American.
[ Muffled tittering from stock room. ]

or an American to another American.
“see a broad who get all booty-eyed, lay’em down and smack’em yack’em. Ho got to be, you know? Sheeit…”

“Teitlo mwdlyd o’r ystafell stoc.”
Geshundite.
Oh, wait…

Muffled tittering from stock room
An Englishman’s way of speaking absolutely classifies him. The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him.

What a WOMBAT[1]. Still can’t be surprised at a SNAFU…
[1] My favorite FETLA[2], standing for Waste Of Money, Brains And Time.
[2] Further Extended TLA[3], as distinct from a DETLA[4] or RTLA[5].
[3] Three Letter Abbreviation.
[4] Doubly Extended TLA. Pleasingly it is itself a DETLA, as is ETLA[6].
[5] Reduced TLA, because you couldn’t use Two Letter Abbreviation without causing confusion.
[6] Extended TLA, obvs.

My former employer was fond of acronyms as job titles. For a while we had someone in the job of “Doofus”.
Formally written as DOO/FSS – or Director of Operations / Finance and Student Services.

[ Muffled tittering from stock room. ]
Careful. They have rules against that sort of thing now. You’ll get Weinsteined.

Is it possible to achieve negative intelligence?

Is it possible to achieve negative intelligence?
Possible? The American Left has achieved it.

How dare you say that?!?
WAP, from the song, not wop…

There are issues with racism and sexism that should be addressed.
But 99% of the effort goes towards useless silly symbolic performative actions that not only do not improve the situation, but often make things worse.

David – there’s a blatant problem here (and you should be ashamed of yourself).
We have long ago learned not to correct misspellings or bad grammar because it is oppressive to those who haven’t mastered these skills. In these circumstances, it is incumbent upon you to work out what the intention was. It is surely obvious that the acronym is misspelled and should in fact read: S.T.F.U.
I hope that makes it clear!

Can you guess a Canadian’s birthplace by simply hearing his “sore-ee”, Professor?
We do have regional accents in Canada, but the regions tend to be quite large. You can always tell someone from Newfoundland or Quebec, and if you know what to listen for you can usually hear Northern Ontario or the rest of the Maritimes. The rest of Canada is basically a wash. In large urban centres you’re much more likely to hear Caribbean, Middle Eastern, East African or South Asian accents than regional Canadian.

But not all of American academia is stark, staring insane; our old friends at Evergreen State are… well, see for yourself.

“You heard it here first“
No, Spiked. I didn’t. I heard it here first.
[warily eyes the small piece of toilet paper floating in his “gin”]

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg posted a document to Twitter containing tweets that she was told to post and actions she should take regarding the current protests in India. She quickly deleted the tweet.’
We all know that she is merely a tool, used by leftists who hope that she, being a c /communists are not human beings

Damn those white people and their …
Oh, hell, you all know the drill.

Speaking of leftists who deserve our hatred and contempt…
Snow-shoveling carjacking victim refuses to press charges — “they probably need a car”

As an American, you’re listening to say, Jordan Peterson…
Speaking of which, it appears that the Times of London has published a malicious hit piece.

Where they get especially annoying is in the regional differences.
Hard to understand how these differences came to be. You can drive through a state like Ohio (some in the state say ohiya or ohia) from north to south and east to west and hear 3 different accents from a flat nasal midwest sound along the Erie shoreline to an almost southern drawl around Cincinnati.
Here in Canada people in Windsor sound more like they’re from across the river in Detroit than Southern Ontario. Meanwhile folks in Fort Erie Ontario wear sawks on their feet while across the bridge in Buffalo they wear sacks.
As Daniel pointed out upstream these differences are disappearing in urban centres in Canada due to immigration and the uniculture of the media.

Hard to understand how these differences came to be.
Population isolation leads to linguistic drift. The more populations mix, the more homogeneous their speech becomes. With Internet globalization and a shift to video and audio over text as the primary mode of communication it’s going to accelerate.
you should see how they treat the Quebecois
To the European French, French-Canadians sound like Appalachian hicks.

Snow-shoveling carjacking victim refuses to press charges — “they probably need a car”

No charges will be filed against any of them in connection with the matter because the victim refused to prosecute, police confirmed Wednesday morning. The 19-year-old man, John Daniels of the South Shore neighbourhood, is being detained on an outstanding warrant in a different matter…

And so, because of this clown’s self-imagined altruism – which is to say, his preening and moral cowardice – the armed carjackers will learn a perverse lesson about violating people, at gunpoint, and getting away with it. They will be emboldened further. And their next victims, whether of carjacking or something else, something worse, will not have figured in this man’s lofty theatre of forgiveness.

You can always tell someone from Newfoundland or Quebec
Everywhere we go-ho-ho-ho … from Vancouver to Toronto, people want to know…
“they probably need a car”
So much for a conservative being a liberal who’s been mugged. Such adjustments to reality can no longer be expected even in cases of “robbery gone wrong”.

Thoughtful response to wokeists: You’re black? Blame your parents, it’s their fault.

Aren’t Canadians the folks who say ‘aboot’ instead of ‘about’?
People claim Canadians say “aboot” but it’s more like “a boat” (as opposed to the American “a bawt”) to my ears. “Aboot” is more Scottish.

Population isolation leads to linguistic drift.
Yes. Also, different regions of the United States were settled by people from different parts of the UK. For example, Southern speech patterns (and culture) can be traced back to certain parts of England.

To the Quebec French, French-speaking Acadian-Canadians sound like Appalachian hicks.
How about all those Francophone nations in the Southern Hemisphere? Where do they fit on the hierarchy of snobbery? For that matter, I have no idea how their pronunciation compares to the people of France.

“People claim Canadians say “aboot” but it’s more like “a boat” (as opposed to the American “a bawt”) to my ears. “Aboot” is more Scottish.”
Yep. We Jocks very definitely pronounce it “aboot” (also “broon”, “aroond”, etc.).* But while the Canuck pronunciation is clearly distinct from the American, it sounds nothing like “aboot” to our ears. “A boat” is closer, but still not it. I think you’d probably have to resort to those weird hieroglyphs they use on Wikipedia.
“To the European French, French-Canadians sound like Appalachian hicks.”
Same with Latin Americans and the Spanish, Brazilians and the Portuguese.
*I mean, sometimes. Some of us talk proper like.

I have no idea how their pronunciation compares to the people of France.
In my experience, the French speakers in the Caribbean sound closer to “standard” French when speaking formally but there are still regional differences. Most of the islands have their own patois which expresses their unique pronunciation which they use amongst themselves. Now Louisiana Cajuns to my ear are very difficult to understand because I haven’t been exposed to it for any length of time. Others would probably say the same thing about French-Canadian joual, which I can understand and affect because I’ve been exposed to it.

while she’s worked hard to lose her accent, it still pops out at unexpected times
My maternal grandparents were of German descent and had the misfortune to live in a town named “Berlin” during WWI. The local German community made a concerted effort to “go native” so as to avoid being seen as potentially having loyalties to the Fatherland. Not once in my life did I ever hear either of my grandparents speak a word of German.
My mother, on the other hand, knows a handful of German words and phrases, all of them the kind of thing young mothers shout at their children when they are very angry.

My mother, on the other hand, knows a handful of German words and phrases, all of them the kind of thing young mothers shout at their children when they are very angry.
Similar here but never knew my grandparents. Did have German toilet training via a German aunt, for which I blame….well, I digress…but via dear ole Mom and Aunt Lucy I know (phonetically as I’ve never really studied the language) Sitz-de-hint, schluphunnas, dumkopf, schvinekopf…a few others. Which I now suffer upon my dog.

…you can usually hear Northern Ontario or the rest of the Maritimes
In southern Ontario, Ottawa Valley accents are hard to miss. There is also the nearly-extinct “Old Ontario” which you’re actually more likely to hear among older people in rural parts of the West, not in ‘ntario. Watch for any initial vowel followed by a nasal consonant…nope, you missed it that time. Try agayne.
The Acadians (when speaking English) have a very distinctive accent, which differs from a French-speaking Quebecer’s English. There are also identifiable regional accents through the English-speaking parts of the Maritimes (St. John Valley, Cape Breton, southwestern Nova Scotia). English-assimilated Acadians are different again.
The Newfoundland Baymen (as distinct from the Townies) often have very local dialects. A friend that worked near Grand Bruit in the southwest recalled how mainlanders were sometimes pressed into service to translate for one Bayman to another from a different outport.
Labradorian (“Settler”) English is distinguishable from Newfoundland English too (watch Last Stop Garage). I know it by its punctuation:
Interrogative, “er what?” (“You goin’ fer a coffee er what?”)
Simple declarative, “I s’pose” (“Well, I’ll go find another boulder, I s’pose.”)
Emphatic, “I daresay” (“Some mail fer you, I daresay.”)
Exclamatory, “I say” (“Oh, shit on it, I say!”)
To the European French, French-Canadians sound like Appalachian hicks.
Quebec Joual and Acadian French both descend from Norman langue d’oil, which is also preserved in the Channel Island dialects. Jerseyish for “horse” is “joual”…sound familiar?
I have no idea how their pronunciation compares to the people of France.
My limited experience of francophone Africa is that French-speaking Africans talk as though they’re presenting a paper at the Academie Francaise. It’s the only place I’ve been able to make my school French work, which I turned into a cliche: “Il marche en Afrique, mon francais.”

I too thought for a while that “pendejo” was a similar endearment from a Mexican girlfriend.