I thought Dartmouth would allow me to feel unashamed by hyperbolic language that I, a handsome and compelling fact-eschewing columnist, could revel in the commedia and tragedia of an opinion article. But, as one anonymous poster on The Dartmouth web site's comment section accused, I use "big words to make [myself] feel better." I would mention that this indictment was made by an anonymous poster and could easily discuss the ironic use of internet anonymity as a type of emotional prosthesis but, as usual, I will remain strictly and selflessly ego-centric. For the sake of the reader.
I have always been interested in wordplay and prosaic form that's why I'm an English major. This also explains my imminent unemployment after I graduate (and my choice to find a pant-suited Goldman Sachs sugar momma '10). I am not alone in my appreciation for language, but Dartmouth students, as I've seen over four years, always succeed in socially concealing any love of intellectual discourse. As discussed many times during the ebb and flow of the opinion page, especially in my time standing on the shoulders of opinion giants Tom Atwood '08 and David Glovksy '08, academic indulgence at Dartmouth often remains solely within the classroom.
Frankly, Dartmouth students are afraid to embrace the beauty of eloquence, especially their own. They are afraid to indulge their inner poets and witty Wildes, as long as they can maintain their 4.0 by giving terse Hemingway answers in their econ classes: "The buy was good, and shouldn't have been anything else. It was an investment we had to make, a by-product of good nights in 2009. It gets purchased and goes up and you look after it and profit from it maybe." The love of terseness and a lower standard for adequate self-expression is only mirrored by the music of the basement scene lyrical drivel inundates our subterranean speakeasies and acts as a poignant parody of our social existence.
Should we ever be this unaware of how we're expressing ourselves or what we're communicating? Even my carefully calculated articles have missed the point, angered individuals and left many confused as to my authorial intent. But I consider these faltering steps on the path to creative genesis. If there's anything I can recommend to my peers, it is the singular experience of self-expression artistic nudity in spite of social norms. Sorry, throwing on a gaudy pair of tights and sipping on Zhenka and Sprite while pretending to be interested in my American Prose class won't cut it. You thought Gertrude Stein was an up-and-coming band from Brooklyn. I hate 'tails.
But I have faith in us. I see a school that loves playful acronyms for task forces and subcommittees. As part of my dragnet of approval, I'll even count the bevy of immature-but-sly gynic jokes that followed the announcement of two philanthropic events put on by female Dartmouth teams: hockey's "Pink in the Rink" and basketball's "The Pink Zone." These inspire hope for a brighter (or merely puerile) future.
I want to see hope in the minds of Dartmouth students as language lovers but alas, with florid prose, some fear that I fly too close to the sun. Do I suffer from turgid style, or from a forbidden love of fluency? My abuse of alliteration advocates for itself.
Little do we realize, so often, that language is often the greatest representation of ourselves. That, when we pepper our discussions with the word "like," we depreciate the currency of artful simile? Or, when each sentence includes several instances of "you know," we seem to know less and less? Am I destined to remain what some may call "that pretentious dick" who writes opinion columns in the paper? Perhaps.
One of my Fall term articles discussed the fact that students fear asserting themselves in the classroom which was only followed by accusations that I am a lexical elitist. Am I to become an effigy of the Dartmouth Tea Party, tea-bagged to saggy submission by those who are unwilling to allow over-the-top, but healthily self-aware expression to grace the paper? I'll accept such a fate, as long as I get to keep my 700 words of emotive space. Get yours.
