2. A typed letter:
Prof. Ann,He added in handwriting:
I read with dismay your 11/6/05 column in the Journal/Sentinel on Bush and Alito.
I concluded that during the past 56 years my alma mater must have slipped considerably.
I hope that the extent of your teaching duties consists solely of teaching Tiddle-winks to over-pampered fraternity and sorority students.
The problem with Roberts and Alito is that while they may have been born with good brains; the poor devils have no hearts. Unfortunately, Bush has neither!
And he is a damn liar!!
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22 comments:
What's with the slam against fraternities and sororities?
Still, you have to give him credit for carefully analyzing your views and describing in detail where they don't add up. (I'm assuming he did that and just forgot to include it in the letter.)
The personal letter is such a lost art, good to see someone still at it. Though the modern use of Google would have shown that tiddlewinks is not hyphenated; but I quibble...a dictionary would have been useful, too.
The handwritten afterword is a nice Martha Stewart touch.
please, please, please let's not start a fad of snail mail trolling! Good God, that would be annoying! and no email/snail mail trolling combos, either! "In 7 to 10 days, you're going to get such a diss...until then, suffer!"
A typed letter- must have been kinda nostalgic to get one of those.
Do you think the letterwriter typed it themselves? After all, he/she has to be almost 80 years old!
Lastly, do you prefer typed letters vs. blog comments / are you giving us all a subtle hint?
Yes, he's got to be quite old, so I guess I'm safe making fun of him on the web.
I've posted the letter on my office door too. I almost never have anything posted on my door (unlike a lot of people around here), so this is a very unusual honor.
Nels: I agree. I thought the most offensive thing about the letter was the disrespect for young people who join fraternities and sororities. When I went to college, it was very much the thing to look down on such folk. We hippie types were certain such institutions would crumble in the next year or so.
The letter is quite neatly typed. And you've got to give him credit for taking the trouble to use a semi-colon.
Lol. I read typed letter and pictured a black and white Jimmy Stewart movile.
I hate the logic of these people, wherein the opinion of an employee of an organization serves as a proxy for the organization as a whole.
Yeah! What he said.
Although, OTOH, it's quite true that when you see what kind of people in your organisation (Jason Blair/NYT), it certainly doesn't reflect well, and should be an obvious correlation of quality.
P.S.: LOL at Martha Stewart remark.
Cheers,
Victoria
What's with the slam against fraternities and sororities?
I once dated an über-progressive from Middlebury College (in my salad days!).
You know how we broke up? I called him a "frat boy" in jest one day.
You don't have to be a progressive to dislike frats and sororities, but it seems the Greek system's collectivist thought, the actions they spawn are not to some collectivists' liking.
And it very much seems this geezer (56 years??) might have a similar bone to pick with the Tri-Delts.
Cheers,
Victoria
Added in handwriting:
And he is a damn liar!!
What kind of handwriting did he have? Was it legible or chicken-scratch?
Was it written in pen or pencil -- red, blue, black?
Tangentially, I really find it both amusing but oft-creepy when I open a public library book, and find someone has written in margins some comment, like these real-life remarks I remember.
They are sometimes light-hearted:
"This book sucks!" (Da Vinci Code)
Sometimes corrective:
"NO. ROSEMARY WAS LOBOTOMIZED" (JFK bio)
Sometimes creepy:
"The Jews. It's always the bleeping Jews" (Greenspan bio)
Cheers,
Victoria
Wow, I sound like a lawyer.
Good job! You convinced this juror.
Cheers,
Victoria
I would give him no credit for using a semicolon -- he used it wrong. When a semicolon joins two related thoughts in this way, each half of the joined sentence is supposed to be a complete sentence. Here, the first half isn't a sentence.
English instruction at his alma mater must have started slipping longer ago than he thinks.
Also, I agree with Knemon -- it's tiddlywinks.
Well, I guess he told you. That'll learn you. Consider yourself told.
His could have been a pleasant enough letter, as disagreement is always permitted. It's not unreasonable to express dismay when someone espouses views contrary to one's own.
But then, oh, the snarkiness.
The alma mater has "slipped considerably." And he hopes you just teach "Tiddle-winks to over-pampered fraternity and sorority students."
Oh. My.
And then, the crushing blows: Of Alito and Roberts: "the poor devils have no hearts", and neither does Bush (that "damn liar").
Gosh. Did UW Madison grads really used to learn to argue this poorly? The alma mater must have improved considerably since then. And "Tiddle-winks"? The faux British act is a bit twee, dear.
Ann, will you please post a picture of the letter on your door?
Mom: Good point about misusing the semicolon. Don't know why I put a hyphen in it in my previous comment!
Mom: Good point about misusing the semicolon. Don't know why I put a hyphen in it in my previous comment!
Mama Althouse puts in an appearance?
Heya -- your daughter is off the hook!
Cheers,
Victoria
Murph, no response from the cagey Professor if it was crayon, pen, pencil or anything.
Since that was a pretty weird postscript gesture, I'll just guess it was a spidery hand written in violet ink.
One gets the sense the person was just about to post it.
But at the last minute said to himself, "I didn't make it clear enough; I'll just add 'and he's a damn liar!'. There. That'll learn her."
Note the use of the semi-colon -- to conform to the trend in this thread.
Resistance is futile. You will be Althouse-assimilated.
Cheers,
Victoria
Victoria: "Mom" is just the commenters nickname, not my mother. My parents are no longer alive.
And it was just ordinary blue ballpoint pen and ordinary writing.
I'm reminded of a quote attributed to Winston Churchill.
"A young man who is not a liberal has no heart. An old man who is not a conservative has no brain."
I leave it as an excercise for the students to apply the above to the letter writer.
did he add: "By crackey!" too?
Victoria: "Mom" is just the commenters nickname, not my mother. My parents are no longer alive.
Ack. :(
My deepest condolences, Ann. I had no idea.
And it was just ordinary blue ballpoint pen and ordinary writing.
Ah well. There goes my Ploopygirl theory.
Cheers,
Victoria
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