Mark James Russell: Young-hee and the Pullocho

Young-hee and the Pullocho

Amazon Books

I received an email invitation yesterday to a book-launching. The invite was from Mark James Russell, an acquaintance of my Expat Living days, if I recall correctly, back when I wrote columns for The Korea Herald:

So, at long, long last, my first novel, Young-hee and the Pullocho is out. Yay. I'm celebrating my first foray into fiction with a party, and you're invited - to Mudaeruk, a very cool bar in the Hongdae/Sangsu neighborhood.

We'll have some free food and beer (and you can always order wine and other things, too). I just ask that you please buy a copy of the book - it's just 10,000 won, cheap - and try to leave a short comment on Amazon, Kyobo Books or some other online bookstore.

Of course, feel free to bring along husbands/wives, friends, or anyone who might be interested . . .

That last line left the impression that this might be an open invitation, but upon checking with Mark, I discovered my error - the invite was to me - so I've corrected my earlier post, deleting the details of date and time:

Tuttle

launches

YOUNG-HEE

and the

PULLOCHO

by
Mark James Russell

at

Mudaeruk

Tuttle labels the book a YA (Young Adult), but Amazon says for grades 4 - 6. Amazon allows a peek inside, so you can read some to get a taste for the genre and appropriate age.

And don't forget my novella, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer . . .

Rob York on Homeschooling: Interview with the Gypsy Scholar

Sa-Rah and I

Photo by Rob York

(Image from Korea Herald)

Rob York, a reporter for the Korea Herald, interviewed me a couple of weeks ago for an article on schooling one's children at home, and it appeared yesterday in print, "Homeschooling in Korea: Two sides to consider" (June 8, 2011), albeit not in interview format.

Rob, by the way, grew up on a dairy farm in Tennessee, and I've had a bit of experience with dairy cattle myself, having helped one of my best friends back in the Ozarks with the milking on his family's dairy farm about once every couple of weeks for nearly four years, so Rob and I had some experiences in common.

Moreover, he has a personal interest in the issue of homeschooling, for he and his Korean wife have a small child and will eventually face the same issue of how to educate someone who's not a full Korean. My wife and I had taken Sa-Rah out of the Korean educational system once she reached middle school because we weren't entirely satisfied, and we had placed her in an online school that had satisfied us fairly well academically, but Sa-Rah has grown dissatisfied with online schooling because she feels isolated and . . . but I'll let Rob tell the story:

For expatriates with children to raise, living in Korea brings new educational concerns.

If they can find somewhere for their children to live, sending them to their native countries is an option. If they can afford it, the parents may try an international school. And if they feel their child is sufficiently acclimated to Korea, they may go with the public school system.

Some parents, though, try something much closer to home.

That's Rob's introduction, which is followed by the first part of his article, a section dealing with a successful case of homeschooling in Korea, but I'll skip ahead to the second part, which deals with Sa-Rah's case, though I'll have to add some clarifying details in brackets, as you'll see:

Horace Jeffery Hodges, who teaches at Ewha Womans University in Seoul and is best-known in Korea for the Gypsy Scholar blog, has been homeschooling his 14-year-old daughter, Sa-Rah Ahyoga Hwang, for three years [in an online school].

"[As for our two children,] I've been homeschooling them both in English and various things since they were tiny, but both also went to Korean elementary schools from the beginning," said Hodges, who married Hwang Sun-Ae in 1995.

"When Sa-Rah reached middle school, we decided to stop her Korean education because some of the teachers used corporal punishment, not just for infractions of the rules but for giving the incorrect answers to questions of contents."

Furthermore, Hodges wasn't happy with the lack of discussion in class and said students were able to ask few questions. So, since then Sa-Rah has been studying online through the Keystone School based in the U.S. As Hodges is a native of Arkansas, both children have dual citizenship, making it [easily] possible for him to take them out of public schooling here.

The plan had been to continue her education this way, and then begin homeschooling her little brother, 11-year-old En-Uk Sequoya Hwang when he reached middle school. However, recently their plans changed, and they intend to put Sa-Rah back into public school when she reaches the ninth grade. It's not that there weren't benefits to homeschooling -- Hodges said that Sa-Rah's research and writing skills blossomed -- but during that time she became less outgoing.

Like the Gey van Pittius family [in the first part of this article], they had worked to counteract this at least partly through churchgoing -- the family attends an international congregation -- as well as social activities and making use of her former social connections.

Still, Sa-Rah sounds ready to return to socializing the way most children her age do.

"I miss my friends and social activities we had at school," Sa-Rah said, adding that there are also academic benefits. "I like to compete, that kind of makes me want to study."

Though she is half-Korean and speaks the language, Sa-Rah does not look like her peers in the Korean public school system. Still, aside from the occasional cultural faux pas -- such as misunderstandings resulting from her looking her teachers in the eye when they talk -- she has no horror stories akin to Petro's experience [of racism].

"I did get a lot of attention, but I didn't feel anything bad," she said.

Sa-Rah's homeschooling experience [online] has required more effort [in some respects] from her parents, particularly her mother, as Hodges had already been tutoring her at home [from the time that she was little].

"I no longer have to teach every course using a textbook. I can now check her [online] work and guide her with advice, teach her how to do research and related things. That's more interesting for me, so it's easier, [even though my responsibilities are greater,]" he said.

"For my wife, it is also [generally] easier [for Sa-Rah to do her schooling online], I think, but [it] causes a bit more worry since the [American] school system is different, leaving my wife uncertain of how best to assist her[, though Sun-Ae puts in a lot of effort, of course]."

As for the expense [of online homeschooling], Hodges said that while it costs more than public education, it is less expensive than an international school in Korea. Exactly how much depends on how involved one can be with their child's education.

"If one has lots of time, [then one can homeschool the children by onself and avoid the online schools entirely, and] the expense is minor [in that case,] but [also] time-consuming since one has to teach everything," he said. "But an online school can cost a good deal, e.g., at least a couple thousand [American] dollars per year."

Despite moving on, Hodges can see an upside to homeschooling: "The benefits derive from the research-based coursework that the online school offers," he said. "The teachers stress creativity and independent thinking. I'm not yet sure[, however,] if memorization is stressed enough."

So, when she returns to her education outside the home, Hodges will continue to help her with reading, learning to research and writing essays. He also plans to continue tutoring his son in the humanities while keeping him in public school and planning for their futures.

"I'll have to maybe administer the practice tests for the PSAT," he said. "Although Korean schools seem to be good at teaching test-taking."

That's all from us. The first part of the article, on the experiences of the Gey van Pittius family, is in some ways more interesting due to the conflict that one of the daughters experienced . . . but you can go to the link to find out about that.

Incidentally, I hadn't known when the article was going to appear in print yesterday, so you can perhaps imagine my surprise at seeing the above photograph, large and clear, jump out at me when I turned to the Expat Living section of the Korea Herald as I was riding the subway to Ewha Womans University yesterday morning. Startled at seeing myself so prominently featured in a 'major' newspaper, I glanced about nervously, wondering if the other passengers had seen the paper and recognized me.

I certainly hope not, or I'll have to start being more courteous as I use the subway system. No more pushing and shoving to get on and off trains, no more grabbing seats ahead of other riders, no more ignoring people who try to engage me in a broken-English conversation.

Ah, the downside of celebrity . . .

Stanley Fish: Good Teaching and Student Evaluations (II)

Professor Stanley Fish

In Sartorial Splendor

(Image from Stanley Fish's Bio)

On June 24th, I posted a first blog enty on Professor Stanley Fish's critique of student evaluations. He now has a follow-up in his "Opinionator" column, "Student Evaluations, Part Two" (NYT, June 28, 2010), in which various instructors offer their horror stories of such evaluations:

[Such as] the teacher who, after having moved a class to a morning hour in response to student requests, found himself pilloried by those same students for making them get up too early; the teacher who was negatively reviewed by students who had never shown up (they needed to turn in an evaluation in order to get credit for the class they had not attended) . . . .

[Evaluations] can also lead to the abandoning or blighting of a career. Posters report variously that they left teaching altogether or moved to a foreign country where the "customer" mentality had not yet set in or stuck it out for 30 years while becoming ever more bitter and disillusioned. Even those who are aware that there is little correlation between student evaluations and effective teaching (the preponderance of studies document this non-correlation) and therefore know that negative comments do not reflect an informed judgment are nevertheless pained and humiliated by them . . . .

I've got news for Professor Fish. Some foreign countries have already adopted the "customer mentality perspective." Some instructors, however, resist:

A Teacher lets it all hang out and speaks for many: "Sorry kids, you are not the authority in the classroom. Me Teacher. You student. Me Teach , you learn. End of discussion . . . Education is not a business. You are not my customer. My classroom is not Burger King. You do not get to 'have it your way.'"

I ought sometimes to have said it like that to students with the 'customer' attitude . . . but articulations aside, the significant point is Professor Fish's reference to "the preponderance of studies document[ing] . . . [the] non-correlation" . . . "between student evaluations and effective teaching ."

Professor Fish's column is nonacademic and thus cites no sources, but I'm curious about the studies alluded to, for I would like to have cited such studies in previous years when issues of this sort arose in discussions over good teaching . . .

Jeffery Hodges: "How I met her" . . . thanks to Robert Musil

Robert Musil

(Image from Great Books Guide)

Matt Lamers, journalist and editor for the Korea Herald, is currently having a series of articles and columns examining international marriages in Korea published in the Herald's Expat Living section, and yesterday (July 1, 2009) was my turn to tell my story of how I met Sun-Ae . . . which was a bit different than the usual boy-meets-girl story. I've told this tale before here on Gypsy Scholar, but some readers might not have read it:

How I met her

By Jeffery Hodges

About four years ago, when my family and I were still living in Osan, a woman in our apartment complex encountered my wife and recognized her as "the person married to that foreigner."

What the woman particularly wanted to know was, "Why did he marry you? You're not beautiful."

I suppose that there's always a story to tell. I met my wife in Germany, on a train. I hadn't noticed her standing on the platform before boarding, but she had already observed me, perceived the danger, and kept her distance. Despite her effort to avoid me, I happened to sit down beside her. Pure chance - it was the only empty seat. (My wife says fate.)

"Hello," I said, noticing her for the first time, and liking what I saw.

"Hello," she responded, in a low, wary, but husky and thereby enticing voice.

"I'm Jeff Hodges," I told her.

"I'm Sun-ae," she told me.

"What does your name mean?" I asked.

"Good Love," she revealed.

I took it as a sign and decided to marry her. But I had to win her heart. I therefore asked her what she was studying.

"Robert Musil," she said, still wary.

Now, I don't know that "Musil" derives from "muse," and it may be just a variant of "mueseli," but I took him as my inspiration.

"Oh," I noted, "The Man Without Qualities."

By chance (or was it fate?), I had recently begun reading that novel. In German. Indeed, the entire conversation with this unexpected love of my life was taking place in German.

I am terrible at foreign languages, not particularly eloquent in even my own, and was having to woo in a tongue suited less to expressing passionate love than to explaining the mechanical workings of an internal combustion engine. Even the German title of Musil's book sounds mechanical: "Der Man ohne Eigenschaften."

Rather like a piston, isn't it: Ei-gen-shaft-en. Ei-gen-shaft-en. Ei-gen-shaft-en. Ei-gen-shaft-en. Ei-gen-shaft-en ...

She, however, was impressed that I knew the book. Especially when I related the opening story, which introduces the main character, Ulrich, who meets a beautiful, mysterious woman through a series of unfortunate events and accidentally wins her heart.

This introductory part of the novel ends with the dry observation that, "One week later, she was already seven days his beloved." Which I quoted aloud.

I may not have won her heart with that, but I caught her attention. And over poetry the following evening, I did capture her heart.

When I took her to my Ozark home to meet my family, everyone was impressed with her but also baffled. My youngest brother put it succinctly, "How did Jeff ever get such a beautiful girlfriend?"

How indeed? I owe it all to a man without qualities.

That man would be Ulrich, I suppose . . . though I in fact owe my marital bliss to the author Mr. Robert Musil, who merely intended to write about the Austro-Hungarian Empire and would be astonished to learn that his magnum opus led to something far greater than that.

July 13th will make 17 years since Sun-Ae and I met on that German train, and our love is still an adventure going places.

Expat Living: "Broke bankers: move to Kansas"

Small Change?

Unneeded in Kansas. . .

And You Can Bank on That!

(Image from Wikipedia)

At last, another "Expat Living" article by yours truly has appeared in this morning's edition of the Korea Herald. I fear that today's column will therefore look rather familiar:

Broke bankers: move to Kansas

Despite the world's recent economic downturn, I have no wish to traffic in the dismal science. Mine is the sunny science of loquacious economics, and this being a language column, I offer manifold words of advice. These might not amount to verbal economy, but I do truly desire to help those who have suffered the most in the current economic crisis: New York bankers.

Therefore, in the disinterested interest of helping this select few of those rendered unemployed or at least insolvent by the recession that has accompanied the ongoing financial mess, I offer as free advice the following tip: Move to Kansas and take up farming.

"But," you may well protest, "I'm a New York banker who knows nothing about running a farm."

No problem. You knew nothing about running a bank either, but that ignorance never kept your confidence in check. If you can simply regain that level of ignorant arrogance, you will be well-qualified for the farm "job" that I suggest.

Here is the deal, which I shall elaborate in my ramshackle style. My "Cousin Bill," a Kansas native, was recently on one of his "Weekly Ramblings" through Kansas and vicinity, taking in the broad vistas that stretch from one grain elevator to the very next one 20 kilometers off in the majestic distance. Up close, these elevators can be quite elevating. Cousin Bill, for instance, had an elevated conversation with a local grain-elevator farmer in the town of Offerle and offers us this synopsis in his "Weekly Ramblings" newsletter:

"At an Offerle service station, I briefly talked farming awhile with a tall, lean, elderly, baseball-hatted grain-elevator farmer obviously in need of communication with someone other than a prairie dog. He advised that his farming now consisted of collecting a monthly check from the state of Kansas, that entity paying him more to idle his ground than he was making with his corn and alfalfa crops. He did tell us that the main reason Kansas did that was 'cause they found he was pumping out way too much ground water for irrigation, and said if he'd shut off the pumps they'd just pay him not to grow. He was a nice guy, interesting and would have talked for several hours if we'd had the time."

This nice, interesting farming kind of guy would undoubtedly have had a lot more fascinating things to reveal to Cousin Bill, but the important point to note here is that you need only threaten to pump ground water to irrigate your Kansas farm, and the Great State of Kansas will pay you a good money not to pump that water.

"Hold on," you may well say. "I'm already not pumping ground water in Kansas, but I haven't received any money."

Yes, that happens, so I have to ask a personal question. Have you actually threatened to pump water? I thought not. Moreover, and this is the sticking part, you need to actually have some land in Kansas, else the threat will not work. Allow me to anticipate your next objection, that you own no land in Kansas and have no money to purchase any. Well, do not let your New York state of penurious repose shut you out from your Kansas state of pecuniary reward. According to the website "Kansas Free Land" (www.kansasfreeland.com), there's free land in Kansas:

"Several communities in Kansas are offering free land and other incentives. Our goal is to help our rural areas sustain and grow economically. We welcome you to take a look at the various communities."

Just visit "Kansas Free Land," choose your preferred isolation, settle down to the modern farming way of life, and covertly but unmistakably threaten to pump some of that precious Kansas ground water. I guarantee you that this will work if you just have the right degree of ignorant arrogance. Of course, you may have learned something about basic economics from your recent debacle, so you might need to forget some of that. You need only learn to not ask too many questions about whether this all makes any sense and just wait for the money to start rolling in to your account in a local bank (if there is one) in return for your not farming.

Technically, you will still be unemployed, but at least you'll have land, home, and cash . . . a bit like what you had before. Not quite as much money, of course, but beggars can't be choosers.

Jeffery is a professor at Ewha Womans University and can be reached through his blog Gypsy Scholar at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com -- Ed.

As I warned, this one will have sounded familiar. Faithful readers will also recall my more serious entry concerning Professor Jasper Kim's informative column on the forces that precipitated our current financial crisis.

I'd chat more this fine morning, but I have student debates to judge . . . and grade.

Return of the Native: Hardy Gypsy Scholar is Back!

Return of the Native

DVD Cover for 1994 Film

Starring Catherine Zeta Jones

Adaptation of Thomas Hardy Novel

(Image from Wikipedia)

Well . . . that was weird. I woke up Friday, January 9th, 2008 and couldn't access my blog. From here at my apartment in Korea, all I reached was an official Blogger site with a message in Korean that I couldn't understand.

At first, I assumed that my blog was simply inaccessible, perhaps due to high internet traffic, a slow connection, or some other technicality. However, when I checked my email inbox, I found several concerned emails by friends who could not reach my blog and were asking why they could only reach a message that said:

Sorry, the blog at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com has been removed.

"Removed?" I wondered.

I tried to reach some official Blogger page to report the problem but found access impossible due to some sort of glitch with my internet provider at home. However, when I got to my university office, I was able to reach a site for reporting the problem. Since I had been sick with the flu and exhausted from the intensive teaching on Thursday, January 8th, when I had written a blog entry that I intended to post officially the following Friday, I wondered if I had accidentally pressed some fateful button that had deleted my blog, so I reported to Blogger that I had accidentally deleted my blog. Separately, my friend Kevin Kim, located in the States, helped report this problem just in case my message from Korea should fail to reach Blogger.

Upon looking into the problem further, however, I discovered that I was facing a bigger problem, for I found a webpage titled "The Real Blogger Status," where I learned that as of "mid January 2008, Blogger [had] started to do something about a major problem -- blogs established in BlogSpot, in massive numbers, for illegal purposes -- hacking, porn distribution, and spam distribution." Of course, my blog fit into none of those categories, but the timing of my blog's removal fit the date mentioned. Further down on the page, I found the problem: "Blog Removed For TOS Violation." The acronym "TOS" means "Terms of Service," and a violation was implied by the message "Sorry, the blog at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com has been removed."

For readers who enjoy reading long, boring legal documents, go read about Blogger Terms of Service and Blogger Policy Content Boundaries. I had glanced over these when I first started my blog in 2005, but I now looked into them more carefully with an eye to my problem. I had to assume that Blogger thought that I had violated one of the "Content Boundaries," but I couldn't see how . . . aside from the many 'insults' that I had directed toward my poor, longsuffering Uncle Cran.

Clearly, this removal was a mistake.

The webpage titled "The Real Blogger Status" explains why this can happen:

As Blogger tries harder to reduce the population of illegal blogs, and based upon the massive size and deviousness of that population, more legitimate blogs are going to be falsely flagged as illegal.

My blog somehow got caught up in that flagging process. Perhaps somebody -- possibly Uncle Cran -- had felt insulted by one or more of my blog entries and reported my blog as an abusive one. A "Flag Blog" button can be found at the top of every blog hosted by Blogger, so reporting 'abuse' is as easy as a click on an icon. If a dedicated icon-clicker clicks away, perhaps my blog would be flagged as illegal.

But I'm guessing, and I really have no solid clue as to what happened.

I do, however, know whom to thank for getting Gypsy Scholar returned to the internet. Actually, I need to thank two people.

I should first of all thank Malcolm Pollack for his interest in my case. I know Malcolm only through the blogosphere, but we've become cyber-buddies due to our overlapping interests. Malcolm not only provided advice, he decided to contact a friend of his who works high up in the hierarchy at Google, the company that owns Blogger.

That friend is Mr. Bob Wyman. Now, I'd heard of Mr. Wyman from way back in my early history-of-science days at Berkeley, which takes me back to the early 1980s. Mr. Wyman received a phone call from Malcolm early this week and promised to see what he could do about getting my blog restored. He came through, and here I am.

Thank you, Malcolm Pollack and Mr. Bob Wyman. Thank you very much.

Now, I suppose that my latest Expat Living article, which appears in today's Korea Herald, is (ironically) already out of date:

Amputation of my internetic articulation

As the official "language" columnist for Expat Living, I am rarely without words, but since Jan. 9, I have been rendered speechless.

As of that date, or possibly even Thursday the 8th, my blog, "Gypsy Scholar," no longer exists on the internet. Try visiting it, and you'll receive this alarming message: "Sorry, the blog at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com has been removed."

Most readers will find this message less alarming than I do, and some might respond with complete equanimity if not utter indifference. Well, such is the way of the world, and I accept its ways, for I am no more indispensable than any man whose blog's demise entails no corresponding demise of the world.

Some online friends of mine knew of my bloglessness before I did. Malcolm Pollack, who maintains his own fine blog, "Waka Waka Waka," wrote an e-mail of proleptic commiseration: "When my site goes down even for an hour or two ... I completely freak out, and feel existentially paralyzed ... (and) too small without it."

My cyber-friend's words sparked some uncharacteristically serious, cyborgian thoughts of my own concerning the extension of our selves through internetic articulation.

"I know exactly what you mean," I told him, "by being suddenly small, contracted to ... (a) mere physical self. Interesting, isn't it, how our identities have expanded to encompass so much. I feel as though something has been amputated. More precisely, it's as though most of me is now missing, (as if) an expanded body that made 'quasi-sensory' contact with so much else out there has been surgically removed. I feel no physical pain, but a deep sense of loss."

Malcolm agreed: "Yes, that's a good way of putting it. Through my website I have an extension into this other dimension that encompasses, in principle, the entire human community, and for the feeling when that's taken away, 'amputation' is not too strong a word, I think. It is as if a sensory organ had been removed, or something. It is extremely uncomfortable and distressing."

Minus my blog, I am thus even less than wordless with irony. I am a far-less-articulated, much-reduced self, an entity something like Newton's God minus His sensorium of space. Without the internet space as sensorium for my blogiated self, I lose much of my power, my presence, and even my much-vaunted benevolence. Indeed, I feel, deep within my bowels, the definite stirrings of malice toward whoever bears responsibility for the disappearance of my blog.

But whom to blame?

Perhaps a Maxwellian Demon, working for greater order in the internet, found cosmic justification in blocking my blog? Or possibly, some Orwellian Big Brother found political justification in reasons of state? Or maybe some unwell individual disgruntled by one of my posts reported my blog as a hate-speech site? Or just possibly, some purely stochastic cybernetic oscillation occurred, thereby placing the onus on nobody in particular?

I simply do not know.

As a language columnist, however, I consider myself duty-bound to offer a few choice words of merit that might subtly express the finer shades of my feelings: Great profanated balls of execrating dysphemistic maledictory cacophemisms!

I know, I know. Profanity is a sign of poor vocabulary, of a weak mind trying to express itself forcibly.

Well, I did warn you that I was speechless.

Jeffery is a professor at Ewha Womans University and can no longer be reached through his blog Gypsy Scholar at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com - Ed.

Malcolm saw this article before I did, and wrote:

Now I'm famous! Thanks. As for that maledictory eructation about your "feelings" toward the end of the piece: I should remind you that ladies, and children, read this paper too.

I felt chagrin at the rebuke:

Oh, you saw that article? I had no idea that you subscribed to the Korea Herald! But if you're famous, then so am I. How famous am I? I'm sorry about the profane language at the end of the article. It just kind of slipped out. You know how it is . . . words picked up from one's parents when they stub their toe or hammer the wrong nail.

I'll try to restrain myself in future Expat Living columns.

I'd like to say a few kind words for Google, the company that owns Blogger (as noted above). I appreciate much of what Google does, for I rely upon their services daily. I use Google's Advanced Search Engine, Google Books, Google Scholar, and various other of Google's services, and I am very happy about these conveniences. Without Google, I would be unable to pursue my scholarly career here in Korea, for the hard-copy resources that I would need are largely missing.

I am a bit concerned, however, about the recent problem that my blog encountered. Let me be clear. Google has the legal right to remove a blog without warning at any time for any reason. That right is quite clearly stated in the agreement, and I am not complaining. One can hardly complain when Blogger is free and the conditions so clearly stated, but I think that I must, with some regret, look for a different host for Gypsy Scholar and actually pay for the service under different conditions that offer more protection to me and my blog and more recourse if a problem should occur.

I would hazard some advice to Google. Offer bloggers an option of paying Google to host their blogs, and if the conditions are good enough, serious bloggers will pay. I would prefer to pay Google and stay with Blogger than go to the trouble of moving all my files to a different blog host, and I suspect that other serious bloggers with Google would prefer to do the same.

Just a suggestion.

Expat Living: "Share some of that wealth -- with me!"

Obama and Family

February 10, 2007, Springfield, Illinois

". . . the start of a loooong campaign."

(Image from Wikipedia)

On this past Tuesday when I was away from my blog and my news sources, the Korea Herald published my most recent Expat Living column, so today's Gypsy Scholar post is a belated one.

Doubly belated, actually, for I submitted my article about a month ago, in the immediate wake of Obama's successful election -- an edit in the first line reflects this delay, and the column was retitled from "Yes, he can campaign!" Anyway, here it is, and regular readers of this blog will recognize "The Campaign Song" and a few other details:

Share some of that wealth -- with me!

With the presidential election now a month behind us, congratulations are surely overdue from this Expat Living language columnist to that other excellent orator and noteworthy wordsmith Barack Hussein Obama for overcoming the long-shot odds that he faced at the beginning of his long, long, loooong presidential campaign. And while some critics claim that Obama lacks experience, I would argue that he now has a lot of experience in campaigning and is therefore well prepared to wind down the U.S.-led military campaign in Iraq, to pursue the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, to undertake the U.S.-led "war-on-poverty" campaign in the global financial sector, and to assume control of the various other U.S.-led campaigns currently underway worldwide.

Yes, the U. S. of A. is engaged in various campaigns, but Obama is ready for yet more campaigning, and if there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all campaigns are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founding campaigners is alive in our time, who still questions the power of a continuing Democratic campaign, then I propose the following campaign song as your answer:

The Campaign Song

Oh, I think we may maintain
that Obama can campaign!
We hardly need explain
that he's got a campaign-brain!

Yes, he can campaign!
Yes, he can campaign!
Yes, he can!
Yes, he can!
Yes, he can campaign!

Oh, conservies, don't complain,
for Obama can campaign!
Why, he out-campaigned McCain!
Even Clinton felt his pain!

Yes, he can campaign!
Yes, he can campaign!
Yes, he can!
Yes, he can!
Yes, he can campaign!

Oh, we might sound not quite sane,
but Obama can campaign!
He'll prove each bane-foe vain
in an eight-year campaign-reign!

Yes, he can campaign!
Yes, he can campaign!
Yes, he can!
Yes, he can!
Yes, he can campaign!

Now, if only President-elect Obama will adopt this little chant as his theme song, I shall be able to make scandalizing scads of money from the royalties and retire in luxurious style.

Not that some ill-disguised lust for luxury is my ulterior motive -- no, not at all. Any reader of this language column should certainly be able to perceive, from my very own words, that a life of carefree luxury is in fact my explicit and unambiguous aim.

Let there be no uncertainty about that.

Yet, I have other aims as well. Like Obama, I desire to bring people -- all kinds of people -- together.

Also like Obama, I believe in spreading the wealth. I especially urge wealthy readers to share their wealth with me, as much as they can afford -- which is likely a large amount -- but I am willing to have even poor readers share their poverty with me, for every little bit helps. And if every reader would just expend the modicum of effort required to write out a check, put the check into an envelope, paste a stamp onto that envelope, and post that envelope to me in care of The Korea Herald's Expat Living editor Matthew Lamers, then by all of our collective efforts, for I will also send a check, we would manage to make me a very rich man.

Or as yet another charismatic statesman sort of phrased it, "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for one of your countrymen."

And not only Americans, for I believe that each individual in this entire, globalized world deserves a "vote" toward sharing the wealth with me.

Big bucks -- or even small change you can believe in. Either way, together, we can make me rich.

Chant with me: "Yes, we can!"

Jeffery is a professor at Ewha Womans University and can be reached through his blog Gypsy Scholar at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com - Ed

Since some folks might be the proofreading sort, I ought to explain an error that appears in the Korea Herald's version. I've corrected it here on my blog, but in the editorial process of changing my participles to infinitives, the the published version ended up with one participle unchanged (which I've red-fonted):

Also like Obama, I believe in spreading the wealth. I especially urge wealthy readers to share their wealth with me, as much as they can afford -- which is likely a large amount -- but I am willing to have even poor readers share their poverty with me, for every little bit helps. And if every reader would just expend the modicum of effort required to write out a check, put the check into an envelope, paste a stamp onto that envelope, and posting that envelope to me in care of The Korea Herald's Expat Living editor Matthew Lamers, then by all of our collective efforts, for I will also send a check, we would manage to make me a very rich man.

The original article that I sent the paper had this:

Also like Obama, I believe in spreading the wealth. I especially urge wealthy readers to share their wealth with me, as much as they can afford -- which is likely a large amount -- but I am willing to have even poor readers share their poverty with me, for every little bit helps, and if every reader would just expend the modicum of effort required for writing out a check, putting the check into an envelope, pasting a stamp onto that envelope, and posting that envelope to me in care of the Korea Herald's Expat Living Editor, then by all of our collective efforts, for I will also send a check, we would manage to make me a very rich man.

The editorial changes are generally fine, but as close readers of the published version would have noted that the word "posting" doesn't fit the string of infinitives, I thought that I should clarify the point here on my blog.

I'm not complaining, just explaining. Mistakes happen.

Coping as Expats in Korea

Writer Gord Sellar with Saxophone

(Image from gordsellar.com)

I've not written any recent columns for the Korea Herald's Expat Living section, but I read it regularly, for interesting and informative articles continue to appear on its pages.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this past week, three long, fascinating articles on expat-Korean relations were published. Tuesday's article, "Why do expats here complain so much?", was written by T.K. Park, a naturalized "Korean-American who has lived in the United States for the last 11 years" and who writes and edits the blog Ask a Korean. I do not know Mr. Park personally, but his article is insightful and worth reading for a Korean perspective. Park was followed on Wednesday by Robert Ouwehand, who wrote "Why do Koreans get so defensive?" as a thoughtful response from the perspective of an expat. Ouwehand writes and edits the blog Roboseyo, and I know him from online contacts -- we've at times commented on each other's blogs. Both Park and Ouwehand had first entered into dialogue over the issue of expat-Korean relations through their blogs, and I'd read parts of their respective articles online.

Yesterday, Gord Sellar entered the dialogue. Apparently, Gord had also originally printed some or all of his article, "Fending off discontentment," online at his blog, Gord Sellar, but I missed it there due to my lamentable inadvertence. I know Gord personally, having met with him several times for meals and drinks, and he's a very interesting Canadian who has published science fiction stories in such magazines as Asimov's (e.g., "Dhuluma No More") and Nature (i.e., "Junk") -- yes, that science weekly Nature. Gord lectures on culture and literature at a university here in South Korea, where he has lived since 2002.

I was thus very interested to read his perspective on expats in Korea. One passage especially intrigued me:

The expats I know who've adjusted here best are those who have some kind of, well, I don't want to use the word "hobby" again, so I'll say, "interface" with Korea. They interface by engaging with the place they live in some creative, responsive, energetic way. Some I've known in the past made documentary films or created art. Some produce zines exploring the local culture. Others do pop culture analysis, or perform independent research. A few take on academic studies, or work as translators, or live lives of scholarly inquiry in an apparently idyllic familial home.

I'll have to ask Gord to be sure, but I think that the line "or live lives of scholarly inquiry in an apparently idyllic familial home" refers to me . . . or at least includes me, and perhaps also Charles La Shure, of Liminality.

At any rate, the line captures how I've adjusted to living as an expat in a world very different from the one that I grew up in. Compared to many expats, I've got an easy life -- lecturing in a good university on subjects that I have interest and even expertise in, publishing two or three scholarly articles each year for local or international journals, being married to a lovely Korean woman who can deal with the practicalities of life in Korea, and helping my wife raise two beautiful children who usually bring us much joy but always make life more interesting.

And I've got my blog . . .

Ex-Student Blogs Gypsy Scholar!

The Western Heritage

- Kagan, Ozment, Turner -

Ex-Student on my Teaching, my Blog, my Self

(Image from Pearson Education)

A couple of days ago, as I was checking my Site Meter, I noticed that someone had visited from a website hosted by Naver, a Korean internet service. Curious about that, I clicked and found that a certain 'Zhunbei,' a former Korean student of mine from my Western Civilization course at Korea University, had posted a February 2008 blog entry about me . . . in Korean!

Well, the Korean-language thing is not actually surprising, but as long-time readers know, I make absolutely no claims to expertise in Korean, so I asked my wife to read the post and tell me what it said. She quickly rattled off what the student had written, but she had no time to help translate it closely, and I had no time to write down what she'd said until now. I have therefore had to rely mostly on "Google Translate," assisted by my memory of what Sun-Ae had told me, and both are very faulty instuments in this instance.

You can go to the site itself if you are interested in the Korean original, which was written in response to a piece that I had composed for the Korea Herald way back in February of this year, a tongue-in-cheek "Expat Living" column that my former student posted under the remarks about me in Korean, for which I offer below this very approximate paraphrase in English:

The author of the column was my instructor at university two years ago in Western Civilization (The Western Heritage), but he usually teaches literature courses. His full name is Horace Jeffery Hodges.

Now a professor at Kyung Hee University, he is very unusual and humorous, so you don't forget him. He has an extraordinarily high, bulging forehead, and the wrinkles around his mouth are hidden by his moustache. On his head, as a covering, he always wears a Turkish-like cap to hide his lack of hair. He would never tell us his age, so I can't even guess how old he is. Having studied English Literature in the United States, he's now teaching it here.

He always made a thorough search for plagerism in our essays, which he seemed pleased to confirm through a few simple Google searches. He noted every error -- even spelling and punctuation -- on our essays, which he also returned to us.

Thanks to his blog, I've become a morning person, for he gets up every morning around 4-5 to write. Sometimes, you can read what he has written about English literature, but at other times, he tells stories about his childhood home. The writing is sometimes intimidating, but it is also witty and humorous as well as fun and informative.

Some additional information . . . he seems proud of American traditions . . . and also seems to have a certain pride for the rural area in the United States where he comes from. He seems to be a strong believer in Christianity . . . and he presented Nietzsche's ideas as a good lesson of how one thinks when one does not believe. Looking at the contents of the religious blogs on his blog roll, there seem to be many. And his anti-Islamist sentiment is strong. Sometimes, the entries are about problems in Islam.

Finally, he takes pride in English Literature, and his article in the Korea Herald argues for the purity of the right phrasing and rejects impure, sexually allusive language in English writing. This man wants people to pay much closer attention to purifying language, so he writes his critique.

Interesting . . . to me, anyway. I had to guess at the meaning of some parts because "Google Translator" garbles a lot of things in translating from Korean into English, so I've very likely misunderstood several points, probably many points, and I've had to leave some phrases out that I simply could not decipher.

From what I understand, however, I think, however, that the student overemphasizes my 'piety' and perhaps misses the irony in my language column for "Expat Living," but any readers who notice that I've misunderstood what the student wrote are welcome to post a comment and correct me.

The student's remarks seem generally positive, but I come across as a bit weird . . . which reminds me of a George Carlin driving joke, "Idiots and Maniacs," that puts my 'weirdness' into perspective:

Have you ever noticed that when you're drivin', anyone goin' slower than you is an idiot? And anyone goin' faster than you is a maniac? . . . . [I]t's a wonder we ever get anywhere at all these days, what with all the idiots and maniacs out there.

You see, it ain't me what's weird. It's everybody else . . . which to my mind explains a lot that's wrong in the world.

Expat Living: "If you plagiarize, expect an 'F'"

"Effing A!"

(Image from Wikipedia)

Yesterday's Korea Herald came early, but I was so busy grading that I failed to notice it until nearly 6 p.m., when I finally took a break from evaluating final essays and opened the paper to the "Expat Living" section, where I saw, in great big, bold letters:

If you plagiarize, expect an 'F'

"What sort of jerk would threaten that?!" I growled, my hackles raised at the challenge. Below which, of course, appeared my column. "Oh, that," I muttered, realizing that my editor, the recently-stabbed Matt Lamers, had survived long enough -- this week, at least -- to re-title my latest "Language Column," which I'd modestly titled "Netting the plagiarist" (or something innocuous). I guess that I'd better hold off on that glowing obituary that I've already written for him. Better luck next time, Matt. Anyway, here's what I wrote on language:

The academic plague called "plagiarism" has a fascinating etymology, as I have recently learned, for it penultimately derives from the Latin word for "kidnapping," plagium, from plaga, "net" - an obviously handy device for nabbing the unfortunate individual to be abducted and held for ransom. More directly, "plagiarism" stems from the Latin plagiarius, by way of the obscure English synonym "plagiary." A plagiarius was a kidnapper!

I had never realized that plagiarism was such a serious crime, but, armed with this borrowed erudition, I henceforth intend not merely to flunk plagiarists, but also to arrest and march them off to jail, where they can reflect on their crime and reform their behavior. Students shall learn that plagiarizing a term paper has dire consequences indeed.

Many plagiarists, however, believe themselves too clever to get caught. For instance, some who plagiarize from online websites, and imagine themselves cunning, will borrow a passage from one online source but cite a different one. Such individuals think that I will check only the cited source, see that the topic is the same, find no plagiarism, and therefore conclude that all is well. Such plagiarists misjudge me, and therefore make careless mistakes.

One such cyberplagiarist recently submitted a paper on vivisection that briefly summarized the history of this experimental science, mentioning the pre-Socratic medical theorist Alcmaeon, who lived in the Greek colony Croton on the southern Italian coast and vivisected animals to demonstrate that cutting their optic nerve left them blinded. The plagiarizing student cited a rather lengthy article on vivisection, perhaps thinking that I would not bother to read it.

Well, I did not bother to read it; I merely had my trusty computer search the article for "Alcmaeon," and the name did not appear. Obviously, the student had found that name in some other uncited source. My suspicions aroused, I selected a phrase likely to have been copied from a source, plugged it into Google's search engine, and quickly found it in a brief, four-paragraph encyclopedia entry on vivisection that happened to mention Alcmaeon of Croton. Reading through the entry, I found entire stolen sentences and determined that my piratical student had kidnapped Alcmaeon and netted much else from that single, short entry. Further investigation established that the student had not used the lengthy article at all.

I confronted my student with the proof. Usually, plagiarists bow to that evidence and confess. This one, however, proved cheeky and tried to deny the obvious. I called BS on that.

Seeing that I accepted no denials of what was so easily proven, the student turned truly cheeky, pointed to the grade of "F," and informed me: "I can't accept this."

Profoundly annoyed now, I retorted, "You have to accept it. Listen carefully. You are being held to global standards now. If this were an American university, you might be expelled from school. You would certainly get an 'F' for the course. Now, you stop complaining and go work on cleaning up this essay for the final draft. Get rid of the plagiarism, do the work yourself, and turn in a better essay."

The student protested against my unfairness because some students had submitted no first draft at all, so a plagiarized paper should at least receive a grade higher than "F."

"If you plagiarize, you get an 'F,'" I stated. "That's automatic for egregious plagiarism. But only the final essay counts toward your grade."

At that, all protest stopped, leaving only the plagiarist's irritation at getting entangled in his self-woven dragnet.

If only all student protests were so easily thwarted.

Jeffery is a professor at Kyung Hee University and can be reached through his blog, Gypsy Scholar, at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com - Ed.

I wrote that column by borrowing from a Gypsy Scholar blog entry of a couple of weeks ago, so I suppose that -- like Cheong Jean-gon -- I'm guilty of 'self-plagiarism'.

Now, back to grading final essays...

Expat Living: Assay at an Essay

Writing that Essay

It's all so logical...

(Image from Free Dictionary)

My most recent language column appeared in yesterday's "Expat Living" section of the Korea Herald (April 23, 2008), a newspaper -- as you will recall -- that does not allow links to specific articles, which provides me at least one good reason for posting the article here on Gypsy Scholar.

You'll find no poetry in this particular language column . . . sniff. Yes, it's sad, but I was asked to tone down the poetry since most people don't generally read poetry because they find it difficult to understand.

Well, that's what they said. They also said that people are bitter, cling to their guns, their religion, their xenophobia (oops, foreign, elitist word), and their anti-trade sentiment (um . . . somewhat of a mixed message, that). Who ever knew that poetry could be so alienating.

So, anyway, I wrote the following, very prosaic piece on 'logical' writing:

"The what and the why of theses"

Because students learn best through writing, I require my students in nearly every course to write a research essay supporting a thesis.

People often complain about difficulty in composing their essay's thesis statement, but the basic statement is really quite simple. On some topic that you have chosen, ask yourself two questions: "what?" and "why?"

That might sound obscure, so let me provide an example.

Put yourself in Aristotle's shoes and suppose that you want to write some piece debunking Socrates, your philosophical rival's teacher, whom your rival portrays as having faced death courageously by anticipating an afterlife.

Reflecting upon these views, you ask yourself what you think and then, because you are Aristotle, you reply with the claim that Socrates is mortal. Next, you ask yourself why you think so, and you give as your reason the fact that Socrates is human.

You then compose your thesis statement by conjoining your claim to your reason: "Socrates is mortal because he is human."

Note that this has the following logical form: A is B because A is C.

That sounds fairly reasonable, but a concessive clause might further establish your reasonability: "Although Plato defends the soul's immortality, Socrates is mortal because he is human."

Not an especially impressive example, perhaps, but one of my students has already accounted for the statement's intellectual deficiencies by noting that we often fall short of using our intellectual gifts to their fullest:

Although humans have good brains, many people don't use their brains well because they don't recognize the importance of using their brains well.

To help this student use his own brain well, I have tidied his grammar and spelling, but I suspect that he needs to do some hard, brainier thinking before this thesis statement can capably sustain a semester-length research essay.

I will grant that his thesis statement has the proper logical form, but that alone does not suffice, as two more examples demonstrate. For instance, one student, perhaps having considered the oft-expressed comparison of sports to battle, takes that comparison perceptibly further:

Although military strategy and position are different from soccer strategy and position, soccer is similar to war because it has strategy and position.

I rather like this argument's redundancy, though I am not quite clear on what "position" means . . . but at least my insufficient understanding means that I still have something to learn from this student.

The other example -- a thesis statement that I rather fancy -- comes from a student with ecological concerns:

Although many people say that it is not too late to prevent global warming, the earth will be destroyed because it is already getting hotter.

I have noticed this myself. March was noticeably warmer than February, and if this trend continues through April and beyond, I expect that we will be suffering considerable heat by early July and utter destruction by early August.

If this student and I are truly lucky, the foretold destruction might occur even before grading.

Jeffery is a professor at Kyung Hee University and can be reached through his blog Gypsy Scholar at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com - Ed.

Regular readers will recognize that I have again cannibalized a previous Gypsy Scholar post. Once again, I defend myself with the justification that the work put into my blogging ought to have some practical benefit for me.

So there.

Expat Living: "Dictating language to so and so"

Lincoln Steffens

"I've seen the furniture,

and it lurks (on the horizen)."

- ad blurb written for IKEA,

while riding a train through Sweden

(Image from Wikipedia)

Today's the day that I get to be 'lazy' and just post my latest from the Korea Herald, a column written in response to a reader who didn't like my previous article there on "Mucking up the English language" and accused me of speaking like a tyrant.

I know the guy from the Milton List. He's one of those old unreconstructed Marxists from the 1950s whose readings of what I and others post on that literary listserve are similar to what you'll see below in the quote that I provide from his 'critique' of my previous column:

Dictating language to so and so

I take delight in reporting a most passionate response to my recent column, "Mucking up the English language." Fellow Milton scholar Professor C. Cox has troubled himself to quote me briefly and comment upon my words:

"Horace Jeffery Hodges (in his column) wrote: '. . . Licentiousness, regrettably, is not liberty,' which as Lincoln Steffens magnificently argued, is not just not true, it is viciously untrue. This false contrast of Licentiousness and Liberty, and not (as Milton argued) necessity [and liberty] is the true plea of the Tyrant."

Thank you, Professor Cox. I take heart in having attentive readers and appreciate the gallant corrective, but you have neglected the context, which begins: "Lest pedants once again correct me on a point that I know full well . . ."

I myself would hardly be earning my own keep as official pundit pedant if I failed to draw attention to the unorthodox capitalization of "Licentiousness," "Liberty," and "Tyrant." Professor Cox is either reverting to seventeenth-century orthographic conventions, as perchance befits a Milton scholar, or he is committing the fallacy of misplaced abstraction, perhaps reading my frivolous remark as some Grand Pronouncement.

Or possibly, in hastening to correct me, the good man has simply erred in capitalizing these three common nouns. Well, hasten slowly, sir, so as not to sow the wind, for a stitch in time saves nine, else your white canvas doublet will sully! But not too slowly, either, for indolence begets indigence. Let me word it so:

So ...

I s'pose you know
It's best to sow
Than be a lazy so and so!

Though even the lazy sow and sow
If forced to, though.
I s'pose that's so.

When I say "sow,"
I don't mean "sew"!
If I meant so,
I'd tell you "sew"!

It's just, you know,
We'd better sow
To be in dough -- don't you think so?

Although, of those who sew and sew,
I s'pose also
It's also so.

I trust that I have made myself as vehemently clear as professor Cox has made himself. Vehement, that is; not clear.

For instance, I am not quite certain what the professor means by referring to the "false contrast of Licentiousness and Liberty." By "false contrast," does he mean that licentiousness and liberty are not altogether opposite in meaning? If so, I agree, for licentiousness even derives from a Latin word for freedom: licentia. Or does he mean, instead, that licentiousness and liberty are identical in meaning, having no contrast at all? I would find that problematic, for licentiousness entails the flaunting of rules, whereas liberty covers rather a broader range of meanings, including the freedom that one gains through following rules.

Similarly puzzling in its manner of expression is the professor's larger assertion that the "false contrast of Licentiousness and Liberty . . . is the true plea of the Tyrant." In identifying a "false contrast" as a "true plea," professor Cox might appear to be asserting a contradiction, but I think that I understand his meaning. The expression "true plea of the Tyrant" should be read as "true Tyrant's plea." The professor means that I expressed myself with the voice of a genuine tyrant when I wrote these words:

"Licentiousness, regrettably, is not liberty, and trapped in this prison house of language, I reflect upon my own linguistic crime of passion and perceive that I stand guilty of the very thing for which I have accused Larkin."

Professor Cox is right. I have been tyrannical in judging myself so harshly. I deserve amnesty, and as tyrant, I hereby declare myself pardoned.

Jeffery is a professor at Kyung Hee University and can be reached through his blog Gypsy Scholar at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com -- Ed.

Well, judge for yourself my putative tyrannical character. I expect that Professor Cox will.

Meanwhile, can someone direct me to where Lincoln Steffens argued so magnificently about licentiousness and liberty?

Expat Living: "Mucking up the English language"

Philip Larkin

Don't trust this guy alone

with your language!

(Image from channel4.com)

Well, that time has again come around, when what goes around comes around, namely, another of my Expat language columns packing a rounder to wallop a bounder on the chin.

I refer to the weakly double-chinned fellow above.

Ordinarily, one should not speak ill of the dead, who aren't around to talk back, but Mr. Larkin's poetry still raises a ruckus, so I'll make an exception in larrupin' Larkin's case.

Ladies and gentlemen . . . my rejoinder to the man and one of his poems:

Mucking up the English language

An assiduous reader has kindly informed me that my column on profane expressions utterly misconstrues the meaning of fuggedaboudit, which is neither profane nor derived from Norman Mailer's fugging novel, "The Naked and the Dead."

Turns out that in fuggedaboudit, the first six letters express not the past participle of Mailer's fug but a slangy pronunciation of forget and thus do not spell out the decline of Anglo-Saxon culture at all.

One might suspect slangy terms like fuggedaboudit as evidence of linguistic decline ... but forget about it. Norman Mailer is not the culprit anyway. I have uncovered a different dead white male whose canonical literary work bears responsibility for the current debasement of our language: Philip Larkin.

I know, I know. Readers will tell me that Larkin's poem "This Be the Verse" does not grease the skids of our decline but merely expresses our slippage. That argument, however, fails as fallaciously as the argument that gangsta rap merely expresses the reality of ghetto violence but does not advocate it, though everybody knows sure as shootin' that gansta rap glorifies street violence.

Indeed, the former argument fails even more egregiously, for Larkin's poem does not merely cite the "f word," it actively uses that word -- as if gangsta rappers were to fire off uzis on stage to enhance their performances.

Those who have never read Larkin's verse may imagine that I exaggerate, so allow me to quote his profane poem in full, excepting a minor bowdlerization in the offending word:

This Be the Verse

They f--- you up, your mum and dad,
They may not mean to but they do
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra just for you.

But they were f----- up in their turn
By fools in old style hats and coats
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself.

No kids? As if that would stop our descent when it would in fact effect our terminal decline. Well, fight fire with fire, I always say, so I have composed my own little poem of unfriendly fire aimed in Larkin's direction:

This Be the Worse

When Philip Larkin wrote, that cad,
In nineteen-seventy-f------ -two,
He fouled me with the fault he had
Of saying well what isn't true.

But he was f----- up in his turn
From closely cultivating oats
That he had wildly sown to learn
What he could then shove down our throats.

"Man hands on misery to man"?
His own sits there upon my shelf.
"Get out as early as you can"?
At least he had no kids himself.

Lest pedants once again correct me on a point that I know full well, let me admit that Larkin wrote his poem in nineteen-seventy-one, but that would destroy my rhyme scheming, and given the choice between a pedant's accuracy and saying well what isn't true, I prefer the latter. Besides, I have poetic licentiousness and can do as I will.

Licentiousness, regrettably, is not liberty, and trapped in this prison house of language, I reflect upon my own linguistic crime of passion and perceive that I stand guilty of the very thing for which I have accused Larkin. In St. Paul's apt words: "Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things."

Peccavi. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

Jeffery is a professor at Kyung Hee University and can be reached through his blog Gypsy Scholar at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com -- Ed.

So it goes, "Mucking up the English language," and you can also read it online in the Expat Living section at the Korea Herald site . . . if you can find it there in spite of the website's bugginess.

Expat Living: "In search of an Ozark dialect"

Buffalo River River Trail Overlook

"Splendid Isolation"

Near Steel Creek, Boston Mountains

(Image from Wikipedia)

My most recent column for the Korea Herald's Expat Living section has posted online, but finding it there would be a chore since the site doesn't allow for direct links to specific articles, so I'm reposting it here for your edification, entertainment, and convenience:

In search of an Ozark dialect

American folklorist Vance Randolph, famous for "Pissing in the Snow" and getting off Scot-free, not only collected and published those off-color Ozark stories for which he is known, but also did groundbreaking scholarly work in 1929 on the Ozark dialect.

On field trips throughout the Ozarks in the southern United States, Randolph encountered many unusual words and expressions, much as did I growing up in those same rough hills, but I no longer remain convinced of a specifically Ozark dialect, though I currently have time to reconsider as I show my family around these mountains for two weeks.

In my youth, I yearned to believe that we Ozarkers spoke our own dialect, and I imagined myself to have uncovered empirical evidence during the summer of '76, when I turned nineteen and was working as a chainman for a surveying crew in the wild Ozark woodlands.

Mostly, my job entailed lugging chain, a surveyor's level, hatchet, plumb-bob, hammer, laths, stakes, and other equipment through thickets where I had to cut lines, or up and down steep hollows which threatened havoc to our measurements.

One tough place stretched along the isolated hollow of a spring-fed river where our crew sought a corner marker to set up the theodolite, and where I learned an unfamiliar word. Scrambling for our bearings, we asked an old hillbilly if he knew where the marker, a metal spike driven into the ground, was located.

"Yeah," he replied, his face wrinkling with concentration, "but ye got to go antigogglin' over that thar hill to get thar."

Anti-what!? I thought. But it was pretty clear what the old man intended -- the way was not straight, as we had figured all along.

But, for assurance, when I arrived home that evening, I checked with my septuagenarian grandmother, who confirmed that the word meant "crooked."

I imagined that I had found support for Randolph's thesis, but I eventually stumbled across antigogglin' in other Southern states, and gradually inferred that the word characterizes Southern speech patterns, rather than any specifically Ozark one.

This conclusion has ruined my life, and I have taken to staying out nights drinking to drown my hillbilly sorrows in moonshine and to write guilt-ridden songs like "Day Breakin'":

Oh, all night, I been out drankin',
now mah head's as thick as clay,
So I 'spec' mah woman's waitin'
with some high-tone words tuh say,
But I'd need uhn extra drank
tuh help me face that judgment day!
-- an' another shot uh whiskey
jus' might warsh mah sins away.

Oh, the mornin' light is growin',
but mah head fades more like dusk,
An' mah wife could blast mah lies
away like wind'll blast a husk,
Yeh, the judgment that's a-waitin'
can be swift an' sure an' brusque
-- so, jus' one more shot uh whiskey,
save mah soul from gettin' cussed.

Oh, the crack uh dawn is creakin'
an' mah min' could crack in two
At the thought uh whut that scornful
woman's scorchin' speech can do
-- She got words as sharp as arrows,
an' she aims each one so true!
-- yet uhn extra shot uh whiskey
save me on this rendevous.

Oh, the sun is fully risen,
an' it burns mah eyes like mace,
Hence mah wife is surely wearin'
now her godforsaken face,
So I'll need a further drank
afore I step into that place!
-- an' uhn added shot uh whiskey
jus' may bring mah soul tuh grace.

Yeh, all night, I been out drankin,
thus mah head's as thick as clay,
So I 'spec' mah woman's waitin',
got them high-tone words tuh say,
Sure I need that extra drank
tuh help me on this judgment day!
-- now, that partin' shot uh whiskey,
may it warsh mah sins away.

Maybe if I just keep on writing such antigogglin' songs, I can create my own durgenal Ozark dialect, but I shall have to face my tetchous wife to do so.

Jeffery is a professor at Kyung Hee University and can be reached through his blog, Gypsy Scholar, at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com -- Ed.

As for those who prefer not to reach me at my blog . . . well, too late now for regrets, but you can leave a comment expressing your dissatisfaction and informing me just how wrong I am -- a point that my Expat Living column will deal with next week, by the way.

Stay tuned...

Expat Living: "Profane expressions: fuggedaboudit"

Today's Korea Herald has my latest Expat Living column on language . . . which strikes me as odd, for it was supposed to have published my next-to-latest column. That other one would have been more appropriate, for it dealt with Ozark dialect, and I'm currently visiting family and friends in the Ozarks.

However, I must face profane reality, as does my column itself, so unless the use of explicit profanity offends you, go look for my column under Expat Living on the Korea Herald's buggy website with distracting popups -- or read it all here on Gypsy Scholar:

"Profane expressions: fuggedaboudit"

Although my old buddy Al Termini, who drove the Gutenberg Express between the Stanford and Berkeley libraries back in the 1980s, would litter his language with profane expressions like fuggedaboudit, I never expected to see a t-shirt with that word unabashedly emblazoned across its front, but the cursed thing is available at Amazon.com, which at least admits that this is an "Adult T-Shirt." Despite its adult status, however, anyone can access the site and order that shirt!

I hate to speak ill of the dead, but I blame Norman Mailer for initially popularizing the basest form of this word in his World War II novel, "The Naked and the Dead." Here is a typical instance of a character wantonly mouthing this term:

"Minetta was becoming irritated. It was impossible ever to win an argument with Pollack. "Aaah, fug you," he said (60).

Could this word possibly be more crudely spelled out? Mailer's trashy novel should have been banned 60 years ago, but that ship has long sailed and returned with cargo.

Some of that cargo has recently gotten unloaded in John Green's teenybopper novel, "An Abundance of Katherines," which not only incessantly uses the word but even depicts its 19-year-old main character openly hailing Mailer's book:

"(I)t's 872 pages, and it uses the word fug or fugging or fugger or whatever about 37,000 times. Every other word is a fug, pretty much" (120).

In homage to Mailer, this character and his best friend adopt the vulgar term for their own use. Shocking, yes, but not nearly so astounding as the fact that Green's book placed as a finalist for the Michael L. Printz Award in literary excellence!

Literary? A word like that, literary? Why, the word itself is a gross misspelling, as the renowned stage actress Tallulah Bankhead acidly observed upon first meeting Mailer: "So you're the young man who doesn't know how to spell."

Mailer's crude misspelling has spread even beyond the literary world and into popular culture, where it has undoubtedly wreaked even more harm by piercing the virgin ears of any who have ever heard of that rock band whose name was coined in 1965 by the band's cofounder Tuli Kupferberg as homage to Mailer's illiteracy: The Fugs.

Now, many may think me alarmist, but consider the long-term effect of Mailer's illiterate vulgarism. Language already suffers from a deleterious tendency toward semantic drift, and I see no good reason to encourage this vagabond neglect of proper English, so I've written a poem, "Semantic Drift," to warn against Mailer's misuse of our fine English language and to graphically protest his unorthographic influence:

"Wood" now no longer sounds crazy,
While "stout" only scarcely seems strong;
"Foul" connotes nothing of lazy,
And "sin" suggests nothing much wrong.

Words molt old meanings like feathers,
Make speaking a spiel of dumb luck,
Bring us all to the ends of our tethers
Leave us all without giving a f**.

This is my protest. I utterly refuse to use Mailer's three-letter word. Fuggedaboudit.

Jeffery is a professor at Kyung Hee University and can be reached through his blog Gypsy Scholar at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com -- Ed.

Thus runs my column this week. Tomorrow, back to my Ozark reports...

Expat Living: "Fan Dumb"

Fan Death!

Fanatical Fans Fancy Fatalities

(Image from Wikipedia)

My second column on Language has appeared in the Korea Herald. The print version graces the paper's edition this morning, but the online version was already posted at the paper's website yesterday evening. Again, some editing has occurred, which I accept as inevitable, and it's mostly innocuous . . . aside from one point that I'll note later.

If you wish to read the column as printed, you can -- and should -- buy the paper's hard copy at a newstand if possible, but those who cannot do that can also go to the Korea Herald website, but be forewarned. The site has one or two popups, and also does not allow me to link directly to my article. If you do go there, scroll down slightly and check the lefthand links for Expat Living. Click on that and scroll down however far is necessary for finding the following column headline:

[Jeffery Hodges on Language] Demystifying fan. death

My original headline was "Fan Dumb," a pun on "fandom," but I expected that to be altered (though I hardly 'demystify' fan death). I'm assuming that "fan" with the dot has been used to suggest an abbreviation. More on this point later. For now, you can read my original version:

Jeffery Hodges on Language: Fan Dumb

Despite my strenuous efforts to publicize the threat posed to humanity by electric fans, most everybody in the developed world still falls asleep on hot, humid summer nights in close proximity to those electrically powered, whirling blades of mortality, blissfully blind to the danger, perhaps never more to awaken.

Theories abound on how fans kill, but the empirical fact cannot be reasonably denied even though many expats living here in Korea stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the Korean truth that electric fans left blowing overnight can kill a full-grown, sleeping man.

I admit that I once stood among the stubborn scoffers, but what made me a believer, even a proselytizer for the truth, was a close brush with fan death in the late summer and early fall of 2006. Hoping to persuade disbelievers, I posted my experience online:

How can people doubt fan death!? Fans kill thousands each year, but most deaths go unreported because the fans are in different rooms. A little-known fact is that whirling blades disturb the ether pervading our universe, and ripple effects impair organisms up to 500 feet distant.

This summer, fans killed several of my son's pets. First a stag beetle died when our younger cat, driven mad by etherial ripples, overturned the beetle's plastic terrarium and fought the poor insect to death. Miraculously, the cat survived. Our eel was not so lucky. Driven insane by the whirling blades' insidious disturbance of the ether, it managed to flip itself from its aquarium -- through a tiny hole in the top!! -- and die. We found it on the floor . . . shriveled and dry. That could happen to you! Since then, two other stag beetles have died. Snails as well. And a goldfish has turned deathly white! Scary.

Thankfully, our cats and children have survived, but we are taking no more chances, especially now that our two fans have started altering weather patterns in our apartment. In these past two autumn days, they have actually been blowing cool air at night -- even without air-conditioning units attached! We think the fans are trying to freeze us to death, so we are putting them away in a closet, completely covered in bags zipped carefully shut to prevent them wreaking even more damage.

Nearly all non-Koreans reading this sincere, personal testimony resist the truth. Typical response: "You are stupid." Indeed, I have been called not merely stupid but also crazy, drug-addled, and ignorant. Even my scientific knowledge has been questioned -- yes, questioned, despite my master's degree . . . in history of SCIENCE!

More disappointing than personal attacks from non-Koreans, however, is my premonition of losing the battle, for one recent challenge comes not merely from another fan-death skeptic but from a Korean fan-death skeptic ridiculing her mother's concerns:

My mother used to awaken EVERY night at 3 a.m. to open my brother’s bedroom door because he slept with the ceiling fan on. Since he would never heed her advice about leaving the bedroom door open if he was going to have his fan on, she was horrified that the fan would SUCK the air from the closed room and leave only the empty shell of a human being as her son.

Such loving care -- careful love that only a Korean mother could bestow -- wasted on ingrates!

Yet even if I am losing against fan-death ignorance, I shall never, ever surrender. Why? Because fans are killers. Proof? Here comes proof in a language lesson. Why do you think they are called fans? "Fan" abbreviates "fanatic." You cannot trust fanatics. Trust no fan, either.

Jeffery is a professor at Kyung Hee University and can be reached through his blog Gypsy Scholar at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com – Ed.

That was my original version, and for the most part, it's been printed as is, with a few minor edits. The only substantive edit was a transitional phrase inserted after the large block quote about my own brush with fan death:

Back to reality. Nearly all non-Koreans reading this sincere, personal testimony resist the truth.

The phrase "back to reality" doesn't quite work. I can see why the editors felt the need for a transition following the block quote, but this particular transition seems to say that my personal anecdote was not 'real' -- and I didn't want to explicitly say that. Indeed, I would never explicitly say that about fan death! (Or almost never.)

And in fact, my anecdote was real. Everything mentioned actually did occur . . . although my febrile imagination may have contributed the role attributed to the electric fans, but that's a minor point.

Finally, concerning the headline, Demystifying fan. death, I suppose that I should comment on the abbreviation implied by the dot that the editors supplied following the word "fan."

My column plays on two different words spelled and pronounced exactly the same: "fan" meaning a device to propel air for cooling and "fan" meaning a person who strongly supports someone or something. I pretend that these are the same word, but they have different etymologies.

The former word "fan" stems from from the Old English word "fann," borrowed from the Latin word "vannus," both words referring to a "winnowing-fan."

The latter word "fan" stems not from "fanatic" (as I claim in my article) but from the word "fancy," which it abbreviates and which you can read more about at the online Free Dictionary at the entry "Fan (person)."

I felt that I ought to set that straight.