# Did you ever have the feeling your English teachers were full of BS? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 20, 2014, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520 "2014-04-20T02:26:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![dasmili](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dasmili](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmili)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/41 "2014-04-20T23:21:12Z")
I had an English teacher that thought “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” was about suicide. Also “The Road Not Taken” was about suicide. I guess he though Robert Frost was a pretty depressed guy. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/42 "2014-04-20T23:34:02Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > . . . my theory that there are certain books that are practical jokes. They only exist so English teachers can claim they are classics, but are actually terrible. These include The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, and Last of the Mohicans. I suspect nobody has actually read them in full because they are so awful. I read Last of the Mohicans…and Mark Twain was right. (One of the relatively rare cases where the movie is vastly better than the book.) ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/43 "2014-04-20T23:34:02Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Nash was wrong, of course. A three-l lllama would be one hell of a big fire. 😃 I honestly believe that that’s the first pun that ever made me LOL. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/44 "2014-04-20T23:35:18Z")
> [@Lobot](#): > > Still, if you’re clever enough, any interpretation for any text can be supported. All you need is sophistry. Which is why there are so many denominations of Christianity. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/45 "2014-04-20T23:53:06Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I read Last of the Mohicans…and Mark Twain was right. > > (One of the relatively rare cases where the movie is vastly better than the book.) Another, IMHO, is Master & Commander. I tried, really tried with the book. I found it boring and impenetrable in the same way as Last of the Mohicans. ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/46 "2014-04-21T01:17:56Z")
I had an English teacher in both 8th and 9th grades who was obsessed with diagramming sentences. Each time we learned a new part of speech, we would be shown how to diagram a sentence as an example, complete with words on pedestals, in parentheses, reached by dotted lines and diagonal slashes. Fine. That’s OK as an example to promote better understanding of how the parts of a sentence affect each other, but… Every single damn quiz, test, mid-term exam and final exam was diagramming sentences. Nothing but sentences you were expected to diagram. I found diagramming sentences to be a ridiculous waste of time and I never could remember what went where, so I routinely flunked. I have made my living for many, many years through the spoken and written word, and have a better than average command of the English language…and I still couldn’t diagram a sentence if my life depended on it. She was just a bad, lazy teacher who did nothing but make her students dread the study of language rather than find enjoyment in it. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/47 "2014-04-21T01:42:27Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Another, IMHO, is Master & Commander. I tried, really tried with the book. I found it boring and impenetrable in the same way as Last of the Mohicans. I have friends who keep urging me to read that series…but I keep hearing opinions such as yours, which counteract that urging. (So I compromised and have been reading the “Alan Lewrie” novels by Dewey Lambdin. Age-of-Nelson British Navy sea yarns…with cussin’ and fuckin’ and low ribaldry. They say that Horatio Hornblower is for followers of literature, and the Aubrey-Maturin books are for intellectuals – but the Lewrie novels are for working-class soap-opera fans!) > [@XOldiesJock](#): > > I had an English teacher in both 8th and 9th grades who was obsessed with diagramming sentences. . . . I had to learn that. At the time, I got quite good at it, but as I haven’t actually done it in some forty years, I don’t think I could, today, if I had to. Damn, I can’t even keep object and subject straight. Is it “The subject hit the object?” Or the other way around? ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/48 "2014-04-21T02:05:10Z")
> [@Lobot](#): > > I always did well in high school English but never took literature at a university level. I also did well at debating. Overall I was good at bullshitting. > > Saying that “any interpretation is valid as long as you can support it” doesn’t really absolve the subject. To me that rather uncomfortably confuses the objective and the subjective. > > Either you want to know what the text _really means_, in which case any post-modern “the author is dead” position must be rejected (since really, authorial intent is surely the only objective measure), or you’re more interested in subjective response, in which case evidence and argument are unnecessary. Why should anyone have to prove their own subjective response? You can’t say someone’s subjective response isn’t well supported, since subjectivity, by definition, needs no rational basis. > > Still, if you’re clever enough, any interpretation for any text can be supported. All you need is sophistry. There is a third possible strategy, which is simply “saying something intelligent and interesting about the text”. I’ve never really understood the problem there. (That said, this isn’t always what happens even at a professional level, to put it mildly. I \*did \*study literature at university level, and, well, hoo boy, if you’re good at bullshitting, you would have fit right in. The bullshit runs so thick in much of modern literary “theory” that you’d need a backhoe to dig it out.) ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/49 "2014-04-21T02:13:41Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Because you can always generalize from one example to every teacher in the history of the world. :smack: Huh? Who is doing that? ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/50 "2014-04-21T02:17:16Z")
All our English teachers kept asking “compare and contrast” questions when every dictionary in the room defined compare as “to examine, looking for likenesses and differences”. I defy anyone in the U.S. to find a dictionary from the sixties or seventies having a different #1 definition. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/51 "2014-04-21T02:46:30Z")
Authors do have hidden meanings in their work, and it’s not unheard of that they discover it years later. Joe Haldeman wrote a story “More than the Sum of His Parts”\* and years later asked a student of his what the meaning of the work was. The student said it was about Haldeman’s recovery from his injuries suffered in Vietnam. Haldeman never thought of it that way, but realized the student was right. Myself, I wrote a story “The Transformation” that, years later, I realized was about my divorce. Again, I never thought it had anything to do with that when I was writing it. Authors always put their concerns and assumptions in their work. So it’s not unreasonable to interpret the work and discover themes and assumptions, some put there deliberately, and others by accident. The trap to avoid is to assign meaning where it’s not actually there. In one English class, we called this “[the Misfit’s Black Hat](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/413106-week-before-last-i-went-to-wesleyan-and-read-a).” \*Working title: “Tom Swift and his Electric Penis.” ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/52 "2014-04-21T02:54:21Z")
> [@Lobot](#): > > Saying that “any interpretation is valid as long as you can support it” doesn’t really absolve the subject. To me that rather uncomfortably confuses the objective and the subjective. Did you mean “resolve?” > [@](#): > > Either you want to know what the text _really means_, in which case any post-modern “the author is dead” position must be rejected (since really, authorial intent is surely the only objective measure), or you’re more interested in subjective response, in which case evidence and argument are unnecessary. Why should anyone have to prove their own subjective response? You can’t say someone’s subjective response isn’t well supported, since subjectivity, by definition, needs no rational basis. There’s a couple of problems with authorial intent when it comes to interpreting art. The biggest, of course, is that the vast majority of artists aren’t around anymore to tell us what they meant anymore. So that right there limits this approach to a narrow slice of artists who are either still living, or who produced significant autobiographical information during their lives. It’s also important to consider the difference between what the art is saying, and what the artist is trying to say. If everyone who reads a book comes away thinking that it’s about X, but the author insists it’s really about Y, is that a failure in the audience, or the artists? One important aspect of this approach to interpreting art is recognizing the difference between what the artist meant to say, and what he’s actually saying. As to the idea that subjective opinions don’t need rational arguments, I think that rather misses the point. The conclusion is not the part that’s interesting. It’s how you arrived at that conclusion that’s the point. If you want to argue that _The Great Gatsby_ is all about gay sex, people are going to listen to you because they want to see how you get from point A to point B. What’s actually at point B is largely immaterial. And if your argument is trite, or ignores things stated plainly in the text, people aren’t going to be particularly impressed by your efforts. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/53 "2014-04-21T02:56:02Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > All our English teachers kept asking “compare and contrast” questions when every dictionary in the room defined compare as “to examine, looking for likenesses and differences”. I defy anyone in the U.S. to find a dictionary from the sixties or seventies having a different #1 definition. “Compare and contrast” is a standard idiomatic phrase. It’s right in and of itself and doesn’t have to look to dictionaries for support. That’s how idioms work. They can use words in variant ways, or make no logical or grammatical sense, or fail to obey any ordinary laws. They’re working language in action. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/54 "2014-04-21T03:00:35Z")
I call B.S. on that. It’s just hypocrisy, pure and simple, for the teachers to preach “use your dictionary!!” day in and day out, and then say by example that what is in them doesn’t matter. And believe me, they preached the dictionary use hard. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/55 "2014-04-21T03:12:56Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > I call B.S. on that. It’s just hypocrisy, pure and simple, for the teachers to preach “use your dictionary!!” day in and day out, and then say by example that what is in them doesn’t matter. And believe me, they preached the dictionary use hard. Phrases are different than words. You should have been taught that. You should have been taught about idioms, too. I bet you were at some point. Are you sure the school’s to blame? ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/56 "2014-04-21T03:21:27Z")
The English teachers did exactly what I say they did. I stand by my opinion and will not back down. BTW, it’s properly “different from.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/57 "2014-04-21T03:23:31Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Let me guess: You skipped class on the day they taught how to avoid run-on sentences. I’m writing in casual style on this board, not for an academic paper. Except for adding a comma after “of course,” I don’t see any issue with the sentences (and even that can be stylistically defended), unless you dislike the parentheticals (or think that run-ons are simply long sentences. They are not.) Of course, those parentheticals are intended for the off-hand stream-of-conscious tone of the post. That’s how I talk in real life, and that’s what I try to replicate in writing. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/58 "2014-04-21T03:53:14Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > I’ve had English teachers who were _delighted_ to get a paper proposing a completely goofy interpretation, as long as it was somewhat reasonably supported and entertainingly written. They’d read the same trite babble so many times that getting something weird was a relief. On the other hand, I’ve had a couple of English teachers who took offense if you dared deviate from the Holy Writ…which was generally whatever interpretation they picked up in college. To be fair, they usually didn’t openly mark it against you in your grade, contenting themselves with snide comments. > > For what the anecdote’s worth, the dogmatic teachers were in small, rural schools and were dogmatic about pretty much everything in their lives. The ones who enjoyed oddball papers were mostly college professors, though one of my high school teachers liked them as well. > > Different people have different hang-ups. That sounds about right. All my college professors liked the offbeat interpretations–as long as they were intellectually supported–and even my high school English teachers enjoyed it. I was a little bit of a game theorist about my approach to English papers. I figured most of my teachers were sick of reading the same thoughts over and over again, so my best bet for a good grade was to find a different take on the subject from my classmates. That approach served me well. > [@dasmili](#): > > I had an English teacher that thought “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” was about suicide. Also “The Road Not Taken” was about suicide. I guess he though Robert Frost was a pretty depressed guy. Neither of those are unheard of interpretations for those two poems, especially the first one. In fact, I’d say the suicide interpretation of “Stopping by Woods…” is pretty common. That said, that’s not how I personally interpret it, and, if the teacher was claiming that to be THE interpretation, that would be incorrect. > [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > I agree that the idea has merit. My reasons with not liking English as a school subject have more to do with trying to make it into something it is not meant to be. I felt that there was too often the need to come up with far fetched interpretations. To make a contrast, in the sciences, even the soft sciences, an idea has to be tested in the real world and there is more of an ability to find a more right or wrong answer. In Literature there is no real right or wrong answer necessarily, but the demands of having it for a graded subject require fitting what you think into a gradable paper. I read extensively, I probably have read 4 times as much literature outside of school. I just find that Literature can be a great way to expand your mind and your views but trying to fit it into an academic structure creates a situation that breeds a lot of what I consider to be BS. That was my issue with English classes, as well, and what made it so difficult for me. With subjects with clear right and wrong answers, it was easy to know what exactly you had to do to get a good grade. For example, in a related class like copyediting (which was in the journalism school), it was easy to ascertain whether you knew the rules of the Associated Press Stylebook or not. In writing a paper about Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” not so much so. (Yes, that’s an intentional “sentence fragment” if anyone feels like being pedantic and pointing out some sort of irony.) Grading is much more fluid and subjective, and you’re being graded on critical thought processes more so than factual knowledge of the material. At least that’s how it was with my teachers. I found this very challenging and difficult, more so than my math and science classes (and this is part of why I never expected to end up with an English degree after I finished college.) ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/59 "2014-04-21T04:37:56Z")
I never studied literature at a tertiary level - but I did well at secondary school. Mostly because I would read a book 5 or 6 or more times, until I could pull quotes out of my arse to support whatever the fuck I wanted to argue. Some books I enjoyed, some I didn’t - but one thing I have always hated is a “search for deeper meaning”. Sometimes a story is just a story - and I will take away from it whatever it means to me, without it needing to be an allegory, allusion or whatever the hell other things you want to claim. And for what it’s worth - I make my living by writing - but I couldn’t for the life of me diagram a sentence or tell you the difference between a verb and an adverb - let along talk about prepositions, passive voice or any of the other things that my 10 year old kid is now being taught. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520/60 "2014-04-21T04:48:01Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > For example, in a related class like copyediting Gaudere’s Law, of course. “Copy editing.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-ever-have-the-feeling-your-english-teachers-were-full-of-bs/686520.md?page=4)