SpecGram Vol CLXXX, No ρ Contents The Perplexed Linguist’s Guide to English Departments—Athanasious Schadenpoodle

Special Supplemental Letter from the Editor

The age of innocence has come to an end: You are stranger in a strange land—a linguist in an English department. A brave new world, it is, but you find yourself in a catch-22. While obviously not a native son,* you don’t really want to admit to being the stranger that you are. Do you endure one hundred years of solitude, known as a misanthrope and forever among the outsiders, or do you jump straight to the heart of the matter and ask for guidance from your colleagues? A fine balance must be struck, lest your reputation be reduced to a handful of dust, or, ostracized, you become an invisible man;** your career become an American tragedy, the massacre at Paris, or a murder on the Orient Express.

Your concern, fortunately, is much ado about nothing, for your deliverance is at hand! The inimitable Athanasious Schadenpoodle has prepared a unique guide that will have you on the road to the power and the glory of understanding and acceptance in your new milieu. Your soul will be light in August, the new school year a celebration, not something to be avoided like the plague. Your interactions with colleagues—rather than both crime and punishment in one—will be full of near-infinite jest.

May your desk be in a room with a view—and may the odds be ever in your favor!†


* Or daughter. Sexism in Literature is unavoidable, as most Literature is old, and thus from a less enlightened time.

** See.*

† Though if you haven’t counted at least thirty literary references, the odds are not actually in your favor—and they never will be unless you study this guide!

The Perplexed Linguist’s Guide to English Departments—Athanasious Schadenpoodle
SpecGram Vol CLXXX, No ρ Contents