Well, right off the bat we have two problems.
My student was introducing her Early American Literature “confluences” paper, for which students were to choose from the syllabus five works written within a span of 50 years and then use them to develop a sense of the intellectual, cultural, or philosophical life of that time. Since my syllabus was organized by theme rather than chronology, the paper was my effort to encourage students to weave the themes together into a larger picture (or tapestry)—or, to use the metaphor of the assignment, to show how these separate ideas flowed together into the collective experience of the culture.
She thinks of each piece as having its own “period,” though, rather than thinking of a period that comprises those works. Off to a bad beginning!
The phrasing has no logic, either, but my student is merely repeating an increasingly common bit of thoughtlessness, not inventing her own: “between” asks for two limits, joined by “and.” “Between the morning and the evening,” for example; “between north and south”; “between the cradle and the grave”; “between January and December.” So she should say “between 1630 and 1685.” Instead, she uses a hyphen (should be an en dash, of course), which in expressions such as this is pronounced “to,” as thus: “1630 to 1685.” Now, the last time I checked, it is not idiomatic to say “between [something] to [something else]: “between morning to evening”; between north to south”; “between the cradle to the grave”…. Sorry, but these phrases refuse to mean anything to me! Of course I knew what she meant; that isn’t how to say it, though, at least not yet.
But the imprecision that inhabits this part of the sentence is mere precursor to the huge vague wave of the hand that follows:
“The time periods of my pieces are between 1630-1685, which was when religion, illness, death, tragedy etc. happened.”
I don’t let my writing students use “etc.” In the margin I write “avoid this catch-all!” The Latin phrase that means “and others,” or “and other things of this nature,” or “and similar things” (or as the King of Siam so charmingly sings in The King and I, “et cetera, et cetera, and so forth”) should be used only when other elements in the series can with accuracy be predicted; it should not indicate writer’s fatigue, lack of interest, or “whatev”—which is exactly how most student writers use it.
Here my student seems to have a relatively coherent series, if “religion” can be considered dire and fatal like illness, death, and tragedy. But if she does intend a coherent series, I can’t imagine any more elements that would be needed to complete it: illness, death, and tragedy seem to cover most of the territory. And if she does not consider religion dire, fatal, and tragic, then what’s it doing in this series? (Her discussion of religion in her paper seemed to present it as dour but not dire.)
I also am relieved to know that religion, illness, death, and tragedy seem to have been confined to a mere 55-year period several centuries ago. I can breathe a sigh of relief that these things no longer occur, since she assures me with a simple past-tense verb that they are over and done with. I do wonder how Shakespeare and Sophocles got so sad, and evidently so prophetic, living before death and tragedy happened. Somehow death must have happened before 1630—and after 1685, for that matter—because a lot of gravestones carry very different dates. But my student’s sentence would deny such evidence.
What really fascinates me about the sentence is that it is at the same time so hazy and so confident. In that way it truly was predictive of the entire paper, so I suppose I should acknowledge its value as a first sentence. Yes, the paper really did go on as it had begun.
For nine pages.
Etc.
July 26th, 2015 at 1:06 am
This was so funny to read. I do not know, if as a future teacher I am eager to find any of these, or just terrified that something of a similar nature might happen to me.
July 26th, 2015 at 12:07 pm
They happen to all of us. The funny ones get us through the ones that are just…sad…. Glad you’re planning to teach!
July 26th, 2015 at 3:36 am
The post was very interesting to read even when I hate language references. Thanks for it!!!
July 26th, 2015 at 12:06 pm
Thank YOU!
July 26th, 2015 at 1:16 pm
One of my friends wrote an article on language of Shakespeare recently and I couldn’t read it. It was so horrible with all the nonsense and lots of etc.
July 28th, 2015 at 9:22 am
“Etc.” almost always is a message from writer to reader saying “You do the work; I can’t be bothered to finish this!” Makes you just want to stop reading, doesn’t it?
July 28th, 2015 at 12:17 pm
When we were kids we used to write it in our answer sheets, letting teachers know we know more than we actally say.
July 29th, 2015 at 9:25 pm
…or hoping teachers would THINK you knew more than you actually said? ;-}
July 26th, 2015 at 9:38 pm
Giggling, etc.
July 28th, 2015 at 11:44 am
“writer’s fatigue, lack of interest, or “whatev”
Basically the norm for students who have yet to discover the reason why they are taking the course…and probably never will…(so why don’t they go take tennis/bowling/cooking or something “useful” for their lives like they used too?)
They don’t pay you enough.(You could moonlight as a stand-up comic…)
That was an intriguing topic, by the way. Such openness should have given all the chance to find something they enjoyed to write about.