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'Performativity' ? Sam, that frightens me. I get all these terrible proactive feelings in my stomach when I hear that and my synergies go a funny jaundice-yellow colour like a failed artist's palette. Best Dave David Bircumshaw Leicester, England Home Page A Chide's Alphabet Painting Without Numbers http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sam Brenton" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 9:00 AM Subject: Re: Problematise this > I know well Dave's frustration, though. Working in education I wage a daily > losing battle against language which means nothing. The dreaded 'synergy' and > the classic 'proactive' are creeping back in. 'Performativity' currently > really gets my goat. There was a psychologist on TV the other day talking > about the 'principle of propinquity', which means, um, that people are more > likely to get together with someone who is near them than someone who is far > away. Isn't it just a community defining itself by gating itself off with > language accessible only to those inside it? > > Bryan Appleyard, writing for the Sunday Times last week attacked Stephen > Hawking for being too 'scientistic'. Yes, Hawking should be balancing out his > lopsided scientific bent with a hobby - weaving baskets, or 'basketising' > perhaps. And Appleyard should be 'retiring'. > > Sam > > (btw, if anyone else here has a beef about Appleyard, I'd be happy to hear > backchannel - I'm thinking of starting some kind of satirical > counter-movement...) > > > > > At 05:03 AM 1/29/02 , you wrote: > >I just thought, I could assume the English language has only recently been > >discovered and, attempting to trace its evolution, I could then postulate > >that 'problematise' descends from a hypothetical ancestor 'problematy'. Or > >even 'problematis'. Though I prefer the former, as it is reasonable to > >speculate that a problematy was what occurred when the ancient ones found > >their coinage unacceptable on washday at the local problemat. > > > >Best > > > >Dave > > > > > >David Bircumshaw > > > >Leicester, England > > > >Home Page > > > >A Chide's Alphabet > > > >Painting Without Numbers > > > >http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm >