Carmen’s Chatter

This note is a footnote to the lecture I was asked to give on Dorothy Day in Chapel at Shorter College at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, February 5th (VOTE!).

Websites on Dorothy Day:

Catholic Worker

More on Catholic Worker

Dorothy’s Place in California

On the contemplative side of Dorothy Day

E-mail from Mr. John Rivest, Shorter College librarian:

Carmen -

I read with interest of your upcoming Shorter College chapel address about Dorothy Day. Did you know that there is a Rome, GA and Dorothy Day connection? I knew one of Dorothy’s closest personal friends years ago, Sister Peter Claver (Hannah Fahy). She and Dorothy were not only personal friends but worked together as well. For several years back in the 70’s I “boarded” in Sister Peter’s family home here in Rome. I became friends with Sister Peter and with her sisters and brothers. That generation of Fahy’s did some incedible work on behalf of the poor during the first part of 20th century.

The old Fahy family home is at 320 East 3rd Ave. It was a lovely old home. It’s still there but no longer owned by the Fahy family. When I lived there in the 70’s it was like stepping back into time. Lovely antique furniture from the late 1800’s – early 1900’s. For example, horse-hair settee, piano with candelabras attached to each side for lighting, fireplaces in every room, etc. Would you believe I paid $85 a month for 1 bedroom, living room, kitchen bath, outside porch – all huge rooms with tall, tall ceilings, no AC, but plenty of gas heat in the winter.

I was told many times by three of the Fahy sisters (Sarah, Agnes, Hannah) that Margaret Mitchell was a frequent guest at the Fahy home. She would come up from Atlanta for lunch. Unfortunately, Sister Peter Claver never talked to me about her work with Dorothy Day so I don’t have any anecdotal info. to share.

John

Note: Sister Peter also gave Mr. Rivest penmanship lessons. In 1933 Sister Peter Claver went to the Catholic Worker house in Manhattan to meet Dorothy Day. She made the trip from New Jersey after learning that a priest friend had given Day the dollar from her. “Dorothy always said it was the first donation she received to help pay for the first printing of The Catholic Worker,” the nun told a conference celebrating 50 years of the paper.

Websites with information on Sister Peter Claver (Hannah Fahy):

“The Roads We’ve Traveled,” Interview with Sister Peter Claver (includes a picture of her), online at 91FM, Whyy

“Catholic Family Nurtured Sister Peter Claver’s Faith”

“Ministry To Prisoners Reflects 60-Year Commitment”

“University Awards Medal To 99-Year-Old Nun For Decades Of Ministry”

“God’s ‘steel magnolia’ finally goes home”

“A Brief History of St. Mary’s Church of Rome, Georgia”

This year has been marvelous, rich with community and hard work. We can ask for nothing better. May 2008 follow in its footsteps!

I watched Danielle Buckley earn her MA from Exeter University. I saw Ben McFry teach successfully and also rip up the road towards his Comp Lit Ph.D. from UGA. Heather Smith earned her MA from UGA, then taught Freshman English as an adjunct, and her students loved her (no surprise). Heather Michot’s husband got a coveted spot at Yale, and Heather is right behind him, planning her master’s in science writing (go, Heather!). I filled in more recommendation forms and wrote more letters of recommendation than ever before (always a pleasure). Go, Peter Faile, Celestia Price, Corey O’Connor, and so many other splendid Shorter grads! We are behind you. Rachel Wooddall and Catie Eisel graduated in record time (congrats to both), and Catie is DC-bound for her internship!

I heard the Shorter Chorale and marveled. They cut their first CD, and it was awesome. Hannah Hoch turned one, and her birthday party was an amazing community celebration. Regina Zona sang one splendid recital, and she had the audience in the palm of her hand. Craig Allee and I cooked over 700 pancakes in two hours the night before finals started, for 100’s of Shorter students. Doc Allee taught me the one-two-three-four pancake flip and said, when the Midnight Pancake Supper was over, that I now qualified as a pancake sous chef.

The year was not without grief because we lost Melissa Kendrick, and we will never be the same. She will always be missed. Thursday, February 7th, there will be a memorial service for Melissa in Brookes Chapel. I will never forget Melissa. She was bright and hard-working and genuine, kind, and funny. She was a joy to know. She was looking forward to Advanced Comp, so we will try to make her proud as we study and practice writing this spring semester. Garrett Prather has set us the example of missing her and carrying on. I will never forget that Michele Turner said, “We must feel with vigor.”

The year I worked on several books, all under contract, which means that, like the flossing of teeth, daily attention has been required. This summer I spent long, joyful days working on a book for Paraclete Press, on the desert fathers and mothers, and others. This fall I worked on a book of translations for Shambhala Publications, to be titled The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counsel, by the ever-popular Anonymous. This spring I will be working on these books and also focusing fully on the sixth edition of the history of the English language textbooks with John Algeo, for Heinle Thomson International. I learn so much from John, and he and Adele are a pleasure to know. It’s a joy to work with them. John was my major professor at UGA. Paraclete Press also asked to re-issue Incandescence, which was wonderful news. It will be out with a new cover and possibly a new title in March 2008. I’ve also worked on a refereed article for Sewanee Medieval Studies, on AElfric of Eynsham. Those were my “courses” this semester, and I also gave several talks here and in Chicago and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, my husband Sean continues to help me get more and more wired. We’re putting up a wiki to be used in my Advanced Comp class this spring. We’ve test-driven several different ones over the Christmas break and are still in the beta-testing phase, with many cool sites from which to choose! I still love Facebook and find it the best way to connect with and keep in touch with students. This past fall my Advanced Grammar students diagrammed sentences on my Facebook Graffiti Wall. Facebook makes learning fun. I mean–students diagrammed non-assigned sentences on my Facebook Graffiti Wall, throughout the semester! That rocks!

On Tuesday, February 5th, I’ve been asked to speak on the modern mystic and activist Dorothy Day in Brookes Chapel, at 11:00 a.m. I hope you can come!

May 2008 bring us all closer, and may it be a happy year for you.

Tonight I was sitting in Chick-Fil-A in Rome on Shorter Avenue, eating dinner with my family when my ears pricked up at “Beowulf” from another table nearby. I looked up from my grilled chicken sandwich to see four college-aged students talking animatedly about Beowulf? I asked myself. My daughter said something to me; I said, “Hush a sec–I’m listening to a conversation over at that table.” Then I heard, “It’s coming out. . . movie. . . I heard they don’t even follow the original plot.” I was hooked.

I told my husband, “I’m going to go over and introduce myself so I can find out what they are saying about Beowulf.” I mean–Beowulf at Chick-Fil-A!

It turns out that these are four students at Berry College, and they were discussing upcoming course choices. It turns out that each of them had read Beowulf in high school and pretty much (no surprise) each of these highly intelligent, very dynamic-looking young women had strong opinions about Beowulf. Shorter College and Berry College are rivals, but I’ve always had good luck meeting wonderful colleagues at Berry and also students (who come over and take my courses at Shorter), so I was not surprised to meet four more amazing Berry College students DISCUSSING such an erudite subject in The Dwarf House.

One said she’d been required to read Beowulf IN OLD ENGLISH as a SOPHOMORE in HIGH SCHOOL. I was both amazed AND appalled. I said, “That’s like reading Virgil before studying and learning Latin. Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry!” She continued, “It made me hate Beowulf.” Little wonder. I so understand! One of the students said she’d studied Latin for four years. These four students were an impressive group!

I told them that it seems Beowulf is either read in the original at too early an age (but I doubt that happens too very often) OR is read in a horrible prose translation. I told them I don’t ask students in college courses that I teach, “Do you like Beowulf?” I ask, “How much do you dislike Beowulf and why?” Then I hope we can start over and get a fresh look at it, but it’s hard. There’s such a built-in “I’ve been forced to read and study it in a horrible fashion, and I can never stop resenting it.”

Why don’t high schools use the Seamus Heaney bilingual translation? Then at least passing reference can be made to the Old English on one side of the page, for flavoring. Or why can’t Beowulf be read in my friend Roy Liuzza’s amazing poetic translation? Look for R. M. Liuzza’s Beowulf (Broadview Press, 1999). It’s awesome!

All I can say is that I was thrilled to hear Beowulf’s being discussed at Chick-Fil-A this evening!

Another note–these students wondered why hasn’t a movie been made that follows Beowulf’s original plot. I agree! So does my husband. I love The Thirteenth Warrior with Antonio Banderas because it doesn’t pretend even to make a stab at following the plot at all, but the Grendel character has a nice, scary feel, as does his very icky cave-dwelling mom. The movie has the right “feel” to it. But Angelina Jolie’s part in this upcoming Beowulf has me skeptical. We’ll see.

Up until July 19th, I had a good run of blogs, but something happened then that put me into highest non-blog gear. I received a contract from Shambhala Publications to translate The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counsel, two classic medieval texts on contemplative prayer, by the ubiquitous Anonymous. Since then, I have had my head in the . . . yes . . . wait for it . . . clouds. I’ve been translating the beautiful Middle English of the Cloud. It’s almost a shame to translate it. I think sometimes I should offer classes in Middle English instead, so everyone can read it in the original. Anonymous was a master rhetorician, and also his content is beyond profound. It’s one of the most gorgeous texts I’ve ever had the honor and joy of working with. Catie Eisel, that preposition at the end of that sentence is for you. Actually, it’s for anyone who loves their grammar real and communicative, as opposed to prescriptive and Lowth-full.

Julian of Norwich writes,

We should humble ourselves and weep over our weaknesses to God our beloved Mother. He will sprinkle us with his precious blood, and our souls will become as supple and as kind as possible. He will always heal us. He’ll heal us with the most amazing gentleness as time goes by. (From Incandescence)

For Beowulf the Board Game, check out http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/10800.html

For Beowulf the movie, see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442933/

Angelina Jolie is the voice for Grendel’s mama, Anthony Hopkins is King Hrothgar, and John Malkovitch is Unferth! This comes out in November of this year! Go, Beowulf! Go, Old English!

Also, to listen to the Dream of the Rood, check out Michael Drout’s awesome website at

http://fred.wheatonma.edu/wordpressmu/mdrout/2007/06/04/the-dream-of-the-rood-lines-1-156-all/#comment-100

Tonight I watched the movie, A Man for All Seasons, and it made me wonder about the etymology of “oath.” I looked it up. I thought you’d like to see this.

The word “oath” comes from the Old English word, “áð.” They even look similar. The only difference is in OE it sounded like “ah” at the beginning and of course now “oh.” So “oath” is kind of like the word, “God,” which comes from the Old English word, “God.” You go back so far, and unless you’re going to go back to the Indo-European educated guesses, you have to stop pretty much with Old English, so they are like really old, really mysterious words, unlike (to my mind) the word “enthusiasm,” where you can say, “And this word breaks up into ‘the God within.’”

But here’s the really interesting point. “To take an oath,” or “to swear” in Old English is “gehalsian.” That literally means “to make holy.” This is interesting because “Savior” or “Christ” in OE is “Hǽlend.” That literally is “Healer.” “Holy” is “halig” in Old English. “Healing” is “hǽling.” “Health” or “salvation” is “hǽlþ.” “To heal” is “hǽlan.” You say “Hello” by saying “May you be hale” or “Wes þu hal.” So “hale” or “whole” is “hal” in OE. All this to say that the root for Savior, Christ, holy, healthy, salvation, healing, whole, hale, and swear/to make holy are all the same–”hal” or “hǽl,” which are really the same in Old English, just variants of the same root. So all of these words come from “hal,” for “whole,” “holy,” and “to heal.” So Savior, Christ, holy, healthy, salvation, healing, whole, hale, and swear/to make holy all mean pretty much the same thing, to an Anglo-Saxon. “Whole.” You think of “integrity.” Is that not absolutely awesome?! It’s like a poem, only it’s etymology.

I am painting my house’s foundation. Let me clarify. Our house was built in 1930- or 1940- something. It’s about 70 years old—”young,” I should say. I’m thinking 70 is no longer “old.” I’m so happy to have the foundation to paint. It’s soothing, the perfect antidote to writing a book. I’ve been working on this book for some time now, but summer is the time to kick it into high gear, writing-wise. So I put on my tan baseball cap that my friend Holly Leonard gave me with “Mountain View, California,” on it. I put on cuffed, but now comfortable old tan shorts that long ago lost their main button at the waist and are now covered in smudges of blackish paint. I donned my grey Mark Twain shirt (with a big picture of Twain on the front and a list of his witticisms on the back).

First I cleaned the foundation with a mix of bleach and water, then scrubbed it with a wire brush, then rinsed it all down, scrubbed some more, cleaned some more, rinsed some more, and then waited for it to dry. Then I mixed the paint while the birds sang their hearts out. The top of the paint was teal-green, a very lovely layer of color above the black paint. Once you mix this in, the paint becomes black with a hint of green. In between, the paint is kaleidoscopic as the teal-green literally swirls into the background of black, reminding me of the repeated motions of making a pen go round and round in a Spirograph gear. I was thinking how if I’d never painted the foundation this color, I’d never have seen the whorl of teal-green coiling into the black, the birds singing all around me. I was thinking how Benedictine painting a foundation is.

I’ve always loved painting. I first started painting during a hard time in my life. I needed to be able to do “what lies nearest at hand,” as Oswald Chambers wrote in a book given me by a college professor. I read it cover to cover. “What lies nearest at hand?” I asked myself. The back of my parents’ home needed painting, and their barn, did, too. Both were a rusty shade of red. I also painted the barn’s roof silver. That was wonderful to get up on a barn roof (both roofs, two on the sides and one high above it all) and wield a silver paint brush. Your head is in the green perfume and lovely needles of pines. And when you finish, no one gives your painting a grade. Obviously, I did a good job, but it’s fairly easy to paint. The main thing is—will you do it? When you finish painting, you get immediate satisfaction—it’s painted, I mean. It’s done. Over. You learn a lot about prepping, about following through, about continuing when you’re tired of it and your hands and back are stiff, and about cleaning up when you’re finished (or your paint brush will be ruined).

I can’t begin to tell you how much painting did for me then. I was twenty-one. I’d peel a carrot, stick it in my back pocket of my cut-off tan shorts, and climb the ladder to the roof of my parents’ house, full paint can and brush in hand. Magical things happen to me when I paint. Once, on that ladder, my father’s bees swarmed around me and didn’t sting me. After I realized that they weren’t mad with me, that they were doing their “thing” (swarming), I relaxed and just went with the cloud of bees buzzing all around me. There I was at second-story roof level almost, wet paint brush dripping, watching the bees for several minutes. It was unforgettable. I wasn’t scared because I had helped my dad with the bees, and they usually didn’t sting me if I wasn’t scared and had on no perfume.

Today I noticed as I painted that the birds’ songs were gorgeous. And they were singing like there was no tomorrow. You notice more when you’re sitting on a little green gardening stool two inches off the ground. You notice a lot then. I noticed how painting is like writing. I always breathe a sigh of relief when a book’s manuscript is “finished.” No, it’s not REALLY finished, but I at least need to get the manuscript to that point of all (or most) of its being there, “so I can see how bad it is,” as I like to tell Bill Rice. I mean—you don’t really know what your book even looks like exactly until it’s written down. Then the real writing begins (or continues), as you revise and revise and revise. When I paint, I also revise, a lot. I put on lots of paint, and then I go back and make sure the drips are painted again. I go back several times until they are smoothed out. I do lots of going back. I also go back to look for spots I missed. I noticed that you have to look at the painting surface from many angles, or you’ll miss a spot you’ve missed, just like with the book rough draft. I have to keep looking from this angle and then that angle and then a third and a fourth and so on, trying to spot “holes.”

I thought of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer today and that white picket fence. I decided that I don’t even need a bribe to motivate me to paint, although my husband’s saying, “Oh, I’ve often looked at those 5 cans of paint in the basement and thought, ‘Ugh, I’ve got that to do, too,’” is payment enough.

It’s Sunday night, and I’m being thankful for a sunny day, red earth, the cool side of the house, a can of paint, a few sodas, and a brush.

A highlight of spring this year was spending a few days in beautiful Cape Cod visiting with my friends at Paraclete Press. I also got to sit in on their editorial board meeting. I learned a great deal. I firmly believe that before you write a book proposal, you should first sit in on an editorial board meeting, and, likewise, before you ever write a Fulbright grant proposal, you should first participate in a few bi-national meetings that will require you to read through, interview, and decide which Korean professors and which Korean students will study on Fulbrights in America. It’s that simple.

The gorgeous weather in Georgia has made me think of a wonderful old song heralding the approach of summer. Last week and today have felt like the peak of summer, or the way summer should be, with temps at 80 or a smidge above, though that season won’t be official till past the middle of June after my husband’s birthday on the 17th of that month.

You can see this beautiful mid-thirteenth-century rota in a splendid manuscript from the British Library, MS Harley 978, f. 11v at http://www.soton.ac.uk/~wpwt/harl978/sumerms.htm — and here it is in all its glory:

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing, cuccu;
Groweth sed
and bloweth med,
And springth the wde nu;
Sing, cuccu!
Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calue cu;
Bulluc sterteth,
Bucke uerteth,
Murie sing, cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu,
Wel singes thu, cuccu;
Ne swic thu naver nu.
Pes: Sing, cuccu, nu; sing, cuccu;
Hoc repetit unus quociens opus est, faciens pausacionem
in finem.
Sing, cuccu; sing, cuccu, nu!

Summer has arrived,
Sing loudly, cuckoo!
The seed is growing
And the meadow is blooming,
And the wood is coming into leaf now,
Sing, cuckoo!
The ewe is bleating after her lamb,
The cow is lowing after her calf;
The bullock is prancing,
The billy-goat farting,
Sing merrily, cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing well, cuckoo,
Never stop now.
Pes: Sing, cuckoo, now; sing, cuckoo;
Sing, cuckoo; sing, cuckoo, now!

I will carry this song in my heart as I work on a book this summer while the Georgia heat surely cranks it up a notch, usually to above 100 (in the shade).

Ciao!

I do not think a single student would ever say, “Oh, man! The semester’s ending!” It’s more like a mad dash till the end, and then one long sigh. What students may not know is that teachers feel just the same. Yes, we are big nerds, and, yes, we remain dedicated to reading your essays over and over until the end; but we long for summer just as you do. Thinking is hard work. You know that. We know that. We know it together because we think together for weeks at a time. Best of luck to all students during these next two final weeks. God bless you all. Dr. Butcher

Valentino Achak Deng was in Rome, Georgia, thanks to his publisher, to the organizing intelligence of Mr. John Kwist of Shorter College, and to Valentino’s firm belief that community will triumph over a whole host of abusive actions round the world. Please see http://www.mcsweeneys.net/books/whatisthewhat.sudan.html
English professors at Shorter and one ten-year-old wide-eyed girl had dinner with Valentino at Provino’s, and we all learned what a real person he is. His talk was unforgettable. It was meant to be given at Callaway Theater, but the crowd was too huge, and the talk was moved to Brookes Chapel, which filled to bursting. It was the best talk I’ve ever heard at Shorter, and it won’t leave any of us anytime soon. Thanks, John, for arranging this, and thanks, Valentino, for coming to Shorter. Again, go to http://www.mcsweeneys.net/books/whatisthewhat.sudan.html and see “Ten Things We Can Do for Sudan.”

March 9, 2007, 11:52 am
Wikipedia To Check I.D.’s
By Rob Mackey

Trust me, I’m an expert. In an interview with Reuters TV in Tokyo, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, the user-edited online encyclopedia, said last night that contributors who identify themselves as experts will be asked to furnish some proof of their qualifications.

“It isn’t that hard to verify that someone is a professor. … I mean, we don’t need to run an F.B.I. background check on everyone — we just want to make sure that if someone’s putting
forth credentials, that we look into it a little bit and make sure.”

The Associated Press reports that Mr. Wales “said in interviews by phone and instant message yesterday from Japan that contributors still would be able to remain anonymous.”

The move comes in response to what Wikipedia itself calls “the Essjay controversy.” As Noam Cohen explained in The New York Times earlier this week, Essjay was a prominent contributor to Wikipedia whose lies about his credentials were exposed after they were repeated in an article in The New Yorker.

To the Wikipedia world, Essjay was a tenured professor of religion at a private university with expertise in canon law, according to his user profile. But in fact, Essjay is a 24-year-old named Ryan Jordan, who attended a number of colleges in Kentucky and lives outside Louisville. …
The Essjay episode underlines some of the perils of collaborative efforts like Wikipedia that rely on many contributors acting in good faith, often anonymously and through self-designated user names. But it also shows how the transparency of the Wikipedia process — all editing of entries is marked and saved — allows readers to react to suspected fraud.

Mr. Jordan’s deception came to public attention last Monday when The New Yorker published a rare editors’ note saying that when it wrote about Essjay as part of a lengthy profile of Wikipedia, “neither we nor Wikipedia knew Essjay’s real name,” and that it took Essjay’s credentials and life experience at face value.

Interestingly, The A.P. also reports that Mr. Jordan himself blames The New Yorker’s fact-checking department for not catching him sooner.

Jordan did not return an e-mail seeking comment. But in a note on his Wikipedia “user page” before it was “retired,” he apologized for any harm he caused Wikipedia.

“It was, quite honestly, my impression that it was well known that I was not who I claimed to be, and that in the absence of any confirmation, no respectible [sic] publication would print it,” he wrote.

By allowing expert contributors to remain anonymous, Wikipedia’s plan does seem to raise a question: might it be a good idea simply to abandon the tradition of “screen names” that has grown up with the Web, and start encouraging people to use their real names when they contribute to discussion or debate online?

Polly Toynbee, a columnist for The Guardian, recently spoke about the corrosive effects of anonymity on the Web:

Toynbee, who has written about the abuse she has received from bloggers, said one byproduct of the Internet age has been that when her columns are posted on Guardian Unlimited, the abuse pours in almost immediately: “I have around 50 arch-enemies who seem to get up at about five in the morning — they have obviously never bought The Guardian, they wouldn’t contaminate their fingers with it, and they are right-wingers who hate The Guardian and everything it stands for.

“Letters used to be quite polite, e-mails were a bit ruder. But this is of another dimension, because you can’t answer back unless in public, because they’re anonymous. I think that’s wrong — they should have to put their own names up there. It would make them stop and think twice if they thought their colleagues and families would see what they wrote. Anonymity brings out real mischief in us. It is a debased discourse.”

Readers, what do you think? Is it time to start using our real names to conduct discussions on the Web?

New! From the Old English Channel on YouTube!

Hey, cool viewers! Here’s a new video on YouTube. Come hear Grendel’s attack on King Hrothgar’s Heorot! In Old English even!

My husband Sean found a phase-inversion problem with the sound that caused it to basically cancel out all sound (”mute it”) when YouTube converted it to mono. This means that I made four videos, and they sounded fine when played on our computer; but when we loaded them up on YouTube, they sounded awful, all quiet and garbled. My shoulders sagged. I had worked and worked, with many “takes,” before getting them just right. But my husband is literally a genius. For two weeks he worked on this problem until he understood it and fixed it. SEAN BUTCHER ROCKS! Of course, you’ll see I do use “well” wrong in the video, but I liked the rest of it so much that I left that little gaffe. Hey, if the monks could leave a space open and not painted in in the illuminated manuscripts to suggest the inability of us mere humans to be “perfect,” then surely I can accidentally err and then leave it in. Such a small thing, the notion of perfection. Such a large thing, the notion of mystery.

Enjoy! And be sure to keep the lights on, for Grendel is coming to town!!!

Thanks to the five students who’ve already commented on their term paper experience in high school and/or college. I’m learning lots. I appreciate the input.

Sarah List (via Jessica Albright) asked when my Hildegard book-signing is, and they asked me to put notices up on my website and on Facebook. So here goes.

Carmen Acevedo Butcher is giving a book-signing at Barnes & Noble on Saturday, April 21st, from 2:00-4:00 p.m. Come one! Come all! And my students get extra credit (see the “Quests” section of this website). Former students and graduates get extra credit of the most superior sort (the invisible, non-tangible “THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING AND MAKING ME FEEL LESS NERVOUS” sort).

Love to all! Dr. Butcher

Thanks to the suggestions and ideas of students attending the second after-hours study session this evening in FSU (6-7:30 p.m.), I have decided that the term paper work due on Friday, March 9th, must be the first two pages of your term paper. Yes, that does include your introductory paragraph (revised, trimmed down, well-written, and finely organized). Be careful. Do not base your work on Internet sources alone. This kind of resource work weakens your paper, and the grade will be lower as a result. I don’t want that, and neither do you. Go to Berry. Do the work. No substitute exists for basic, good research. And, yes, the two pages must be double-spaced, as usual.

As part of your assignments, answer this question below in a “comment”: “Have you done a research paper before?” If so, tell me how many and on what topics and in which grade (senior in high school, etc.). If you have not done a term paper before, tell me what you most don’t understand about doing a term paper. Do this “comment” by this Friday morning at 9 a.m. That’s by March 2nd, 2007. Do not write in Facebook language (as Nick Cooper rightly calls it). Write in standard, well-written sentences. Also, please see your textbook, pages 371 and following, where (as I’ve mentioned in class before) a great discussion on term papers is found. In class I have mentioned this excellent resource on writing a term paper, and I want to reemphasize that you must turn to this source for help IN ADDITION TO the advice and tips and discussions on term papers and MLA citation that we are doing often in class.

Thanks,

Dr. Butcher

A great student asked me recently:

So, I have a question for you…why do you not like semicolons? I am reading this book that tells me how wonderful they are, and I just can’t fathom why you don’t like them after hearing his explanation. Could you clarify for me? Thanks, Libby

Libby Grammer
http://www.mybeautifulwebsite.com/

Here’s my answer. I give it here mainly as a starting point for a further conversation on this topic. Please weigh in. Tell me if you are a pro-semi-colon writer or an anti-semi-colon writer.

Good question. Well, name a food you don’t like. Chances are that I like it. Or vice versa. It’s a matter of taste, and also I can cite other reasons. As a grader of innumerable freshman compositions here, at UGA, and in Asia, I find that freshmen overuse semicolons–it’s like the student who works in a fudge shop over summer break and ever after HATES fudge. Also, even when semi-colons are used well, I find that, because they are a bit “rich” for my blood punctuation-wise, I prefer them in small doses. A single semi-colon goes a long way with me.

So why do you like them?

Thanks for asking a great question, Libby,

Dr. Butcher

has easily bested Dr. Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s Hildegard of Bingen video, which has a mere 554 views:

SLEEPY SPUDGY:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12PsUW-8ge4

If you want to make sure I’m not as cute as Spudgy, you can see

AWAKE DR. BUTCHER:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HsxnJ8ccCs

conjunction, but he or she must know what a coordinating conjunction is! “Don’t ever start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction” is an old fallacy. Since English has been written, writers of English have been starting sentences with coordinating conjunctions. Why not? Ond ic lufige eow! (And I love you.) Old English (the earliest form of English) often started sentences with coordinating conjunctions. The trick is not to overuse this style, until it becomes nothing but monotonous and boring. But the intelligent use of a coordinating conjunction to start a sentence is way cool! Please see below, where the probable reason that teachers teach NOT TO is explained, and I believe it. Grammatically yours, Dr. Butcher

A tip subscriber wrote to ask if she could ever start a sentence with the word “but.” The answer to her question is yes.

The word “but” is one of the seven coordinating conjunctions:

and
but
or
nor
for
so
yet

Coordinating conjunctions are used to join words, phrases, and clauses that are balanced as logical equals:

Mary AND I went to the meeting. [joins two subjects]

We were tired YET exhilarated by the end of our first day hiking up Mt. Everest. [joins two adjectives]

We swam all morning BUT fished in the afternoon. [joins two verbs]

Often these conjunctions are used to coordinate two independent clauses (groups of words that can stand alone as sentences). Here are two examples, with the independent clauses in brackets:

[We started to go home], but [we had run out of gas].

[She was a good leader], for [she could delegate well].

Most likely, many people believe they should not start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction because their grammar teachers in grade school discouraged them from doing so. Yet such a rule is completely unjustifiable. When grammar teachers teach youngsters the essentials of sentence structure, they most likely explain that coordinating conjunctions are used to hold together elements within a sentence. Therefore, they may discourage students from starting sentences with coordinating conjunctions because they are trying not only to explain conjunctions but also to help their students learn to avoid sentence fragments like this one:

She was a nice girl. And smart, too.

In this example, using “and” after the period is wrong because the second “sentence” is not really a sentence at all: it has neither a subject nor a verb.

Thus, youngsters carry forward into adulthood the notion that a sentence should never begin with a coordinating conjunction, especially not with “and” or “but.” In fact, however, professional writers have started sentences with coordinating conjunctions throughout history.

Starting virtually every sentence with a conjunction would, of course, make your writing thoroughly monotonous.

From http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/032601.htm

Check out this link, if you doubted whether or not blogging is here to stay!

http://www.aolelectionsblog.com/2007/02/15/pelosi-catches-the-blog-bug/