Vox Clamantis: Not Dumb, Just Fratty

To the Editor: Tom Mandel '11 is on the right track when he notes the peculiarity of Dartmouth's "ultra-fratty" vocabulary ("Concordantly Fratty," May 6). I object, however, when he calls this language "dumbed down." In my years as an observer of campus basement culture, I have come to realize that our speech patterns are nuanced and intellectually revealing. The words themselves are simple and crude, but the irony Mandel hears in the speech of freshmen does not disappear over time.