Confessions of a Logophile

Word of the week: Abecedarian (noun) - A person who is learning the alphabet.  Bet you’ve never heard that word before. Did you know that the average 20 year old American knows around 42,000 words on average ? Okay, that does seem like a lot. But do you know how many words exist in the English language? It’s actually such a vast, ever-changing and expanding amount that no one really knows. Not even experts. So for this blog, every word of the week will eventually connect back to the topic at hand. I was actually originally going to name this blog ‘The Lazy Logophile’, so that should tell you more than enough. But back to the topic at hand… College essays. Squeezing 16 years of life into a 650 word (shoe)box. Every single time I try to sit down and write anything , I find myself second-guessing everything . Could it be better? Cooler? Funnier? Show more of my ‘personality’ (whatever that means)?  It has me feeling much like an abecedarian , in the sense that everywhere I step s...

Wouldn’t be a thank you letter for English without Valentino! To the one and only Ms. Valentino,   Whenever I talk to adults about teachers, they always share the sentiment that there is one teacher from their entire academic career who  “did it”.  And by “ it ”, I mean genuinely change their life for the better. And you, Ms. Valentino, have done it. The love that you have for the English language runs so deep that it was impossible not to get immersed into this way of viewing the world from the very beginning. From finding hidden meanings, to unpacking symbolism, to understanding clever uses of irony and satire, there have been so many laughs, so much learning, and a  lot  of inspiration— and all of the credit goes to you. You may not realize it, but I hope that after reading all of these thank you letters from you students that you understand the profound impact that you’ve had on me and all of the people you have taught in the past. I can’t even put it into w...

 This week in class, we talked about the existence of honor codes and their impact on student bodies, whether positive or negative. But cheating scandals have unfortunately plagued even the most prestigious academic institutions, and one of the most notorious incidents occurred at Harvard University in 2012. The scandal took place during a government class's take-home final exam, where suspicions arose due to a high percentage of similarities in essay responses submitted by nearly half of the 279 enrolled students. The scale of the alleged cheating shocked both the university administration and the wider academic community, because Harvard University, as well as other Ivy Leagues, are supposed to be held at a high standard. Following a very thorough investigation and hearings by Harvard's administration, about 70 students were forced to withdraw from the university. However, they were offered the opportunity to re-enroll after serving a disciplinary hiatus ranging from two to f...

 The year is 1984. On a quiet Sunday morning in Wasco County, Oregon, two Wasco County sheriffs have breakfast at Taco Time. Big mistake. Not even 6 hours later, both would be hospitalized in the ICU with severe symptoms such as abdominal chills, nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. In the following days, more than 750 Wasco residents will have reported the same symptoms, later determined as Salmonella. The culprit? The Rajneesh political party, a very unpopular candidate for the Wasco county elections.  3 years before the incident, Rajneesh, who had started a cult for ‘sexual liberation and enlightenment’ back in Pune, India, came to America with his followers to spread his beliefs, hoping to gain political power. He chose Wasco, Oregon as it seemed like an easy place to grow his influence. His followers moved to an abandoned ranch on the outskirts of the county and tried to convince the residents to vote for Rajneesh in the upcoming elections, but the residents were adamant that ...

To those who aren’t familiar with the term, Mukbang quite literally means ‘eating show’ in Korean. This genre of entertainment first originated in South Korea in the early 2010s, but since has grown into a global phenomenon with mukbang creators gaining millions upon millions of views for eating food and live streaming or videotaping themselves. But there is a separation between normal mukbangs and those that cause public concern. A specific subgenre of mukbangs entail creators eating overly excessive amounts of food. Instead of a normal amount of chicken tenders, a normal mukbang video in this subgenre might entail a creator eating hundreds, like the videos of popular youtube star Nikocado Avocado. Studies have shown that viewing creators gorging themselves on insane amounts of food can have destructive effects on one’s nutritional diet. Another pressing concern is the food waste that this subgenre promotes in additions to severely unhealthy eating habits. Sustainable eating is someth...

“I don’t think I can pronounce that— wait, can you spell it for me? I’ll put in the presentation.”   The 6th grade. English class. A guy named Jacob. We were starting our powerpoint presentation on Tuck Everlasting, and were put in pairs. Of course, when  his  name was typed out, there was no angry red line squiggling under all the letters like a snake. But on mine— well, that was a different story. “V, I, N, A, Y, A.” Almost instantly, that snake appeared. It was almost like a signal, a blaring “HEY. LOOK AT THIS WORD RIGHT NOW. THIS WORD IS  WRONG .”  Jacob saw that, and to his 6th grader brain the angry red snake meant you had to click and hold to use autocorrect. And when ‘Vineyard’ and ‘Winnie’ showed up to save the day from the angry red snake and effectively erase me, Jacob thought this was the funniest thing in the world since bad minecraft memes. “Hey guys oh my god come over here look what came up in autocorrect for her name dude that’s soooo funny hah...

Christian Man Persecuted Simply For Driving 90 Miles Per Hour In School Zone A Christian man?? Arrested?! Surely, our justice system has failed us. This satirical piece pokes fun at how news headlines can mislead an audience to believe something untrue. For example, that this man was targeted by the police because of his religious identity and not for the fact he was driving fast enough to effectively smush a child in his path. Although this article was written for satirical purposes, this effect, called ‘headline bias”, can have dangerous consequences when used to garner support for the wrong people. For example, in the world of news articles that proliferate rape culture, subtle changes in a perpetrator’s identity can question the credibility of victims or imply that they gave consent when they, in fact, did not— which all shapes whether a survivor is believed by the public or not. Instead of stating the name of a rapist, news articles could name the perpetrator a ‘hardworking stude...