One in every bunch
I love semantic arguments but I’m innocent in this case.
The following are quotes from notes and review guides (errors in the original) given to me by the most pompous arrogant twat of a professor / instructor / teacher I have ever had the misfortune of studying under at any level.
a) “Strength – A topic I will empathize later”
b) “A material that will not deform plastically under is said to be brittle a material that can be drawn into wire is ductile.”
c) “Compared to steels with similar microstructures, strength, hardness, hardenability, and ductile-to-brittle transition temperature are increased with increasing carbon content up to approximately .60%.”
My comments, which I can’t say to him, would be:
a) Oh really?
b) Under what? Perhaps that missing info got sucked up by the same singularity that sucked up the coma after brittle.
c) It took 2 other students and me 10 minutes to decipher this you illiterate jackass.
I could go on with examples. But the incident that has me steamed was on Tuesday when I asked him for clarification to a homework question. The question was asking about a “eutectoid composition”, which is find and dandy except for the fact that in neither his well crafted notes or the $112 text book could I find any reference to a “eutectoid composition”. So I asked if he was referring to the “eutectoid point”, which is the only similar term that there is any reference to in the book or notes. As I did the students in my immediate vicinity stated they where also confused by the wording. He then took this opportunity not to clear things up but rather to accuse me of playing semantics. He then went to the front of the class, informed the class that a student had asked him an interesting question but that it was really just an attempt to play a game of semantics and then looking right at me said, “which won’t get you any where here.”
How I was able to bit back the retort, “Well Bill, looking at your inability to navigate yourself around the English language I’d say you’re in no position to be determining what is or is not a semantic argument.” I’ll never know.
As class was ending he told me I could consider point and composition synonymous.
?
Next on WRAF a point by the German pointer Wagner. Does this story have a composition? This sheet rock is made of a gypsum and paper point. Could you hand me the compositiony scissors?
posted by Dublin Saab @ 11:32 PM
5 Comments:
Wagner the German pointer. That sounds like a dog.
But hey, you really shouldn't expect eloquence from math guys. You should, however, expect arrogance from professors. I quote/paraphrase from a long-ago source that I cannot identify:
"Imagine the life of a typical college professor: you have job security for life, quasi-dictatorial powers, and a classroom full of people writing down everything you say on a daily basis. It's a perfect formula for total disconnect from reality."
This won't be the last "one in every bunch," my friend. Perhaps you've forgotten from your bio days at OSU.
You do bring up a good and valid point, but let me shine a little more little on Bill.
Bill worked for Timken Steel for 38 years (a proud fact he mentions at least once a class) so could not be considered the same as a tenured professor warped by the faux power and admiration of the classroom. He is not a member of academia.
Oh and he’s not a “math guy” either. In fact he has vocal disdain for mathematicians, physicists and scientists, whom he declares, “don’t know anything.” My guess, based upon other things he has stated, is that he loves the certainty of his facts so much that getting into theoretical ideas at the edge of human knowledge makes him uncomfortable. His hand, so to put it, isn’t just on the bar, it can be nothing but. And that is not conjecture on my part. Earlier in the quarter he made a snide comment about how a physicist will tell you that you can never really touch anything and at the atomic level, “but what good will that do you.”
And if that’s not enough he also bad mouths traditional academic study as a waste of time where you don’t really learn anything, preferring to use, “performance based training” methods.
He is bad from the word go and once I am finished and he can no longer effect me I will send a letter to the school suggesting that if he isn’t removed entirely at least never allow him to teach material science again.
In defense of Columbus State, Bill is not the normal teacher. The normal one (whom I’ve had for a different class and is quite good) went and had herself a baby. He typically teaches things on management styles, quality control methods, business org and whatnot where his nuttiness may not be such a big issue. I imagine that pressed to fill the spot for this quarter, Bill, with his years working will steel, seemed like a good fit for a class on material science, the bulk of which is steel alloys.
In an attack on Columbus State I’d say they chose poorly.
Ah. That is an entirely different breed of jackass from the ivory-tower leftists with whom I am accustomed. (Ever notice how hard it is not to end sentences with prepositions? Stupid rule.)
So, a science teacher with no natural curiosity, who prizes results over investigation? Sounds like about as much fun like a painting course from DaVinci...who's dead and spoke Italian.
I'm afraid this story deviates from cars, politics and sports...I can make no tie-ins. Interesting nontheless.
While not as much as they once were, cars are still made from steel. There in lies the "cars, sports and politics" tie in.
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