It is not uncommon for me to run across people who are of the belief that liberal art degrees of various types are worthless, or that they are not very difficult. A common punching bag tends to be sneers about “English majors”. This confuses me on one level, because these are the very same people that can’t grasp the distinction between “well” and “good”, and that only people who are grammar authoritarians care about such things but think that if someone remembers the Pythagorean Theorem*, they must be very smart. Yet, if you are the average American English-speaker, you will use the words “well” and “good” hundreds of thousands of times more than you will use the Pythagorean Theorem (if you ever use it outside of a math class at all. In my experience, I have used the PT exactly twice outside of school; both times for moving furniture**).
Now, to be perfectly clear, people should learn the math and that includes a formula that is very basic to geometry. For some people, learning this formula may be the spark that ends up a burning passion for mathematics. If one was looking for simple, self-containing, universal elegance one would be hard-pressed to find anything as perfect as mathematics. Under these conditions, a squared plus b squared will ALWAYS be c squared. What other discipline could boast something without exception? Even physics will require some exceptions; the laws of physics are based in ideal states that don’t happen in the “real” world. But mathematics is it’s own self-contained universe; it is perfect.
Yet, language is the equal to mathematics in beauty and importance, and in some cases, I feel it surpasses math in its necessity. Without understanding mathematics, you are flat-out not going to understand engineering, and the ability for a person (or a group of people) to produce to a skyscraper is functionally impossible. But, without language, how are you going to coordinate with everyone to make the sky-scraper at all?
Language is a symbol that we have created because we cannot peer into someone else’s mind and hear, see, and know what they are thinking. And since language is a symbol, it only functions if we all agree what that symbol means. “Well” is an adverb (with the exception of when it is used to describe health); it modifies a verb or an adjective. “Good” is an adjective; it modifies a noun (with the exception of when it is a noun). Without these distinctions, language becomes more ambiguous. If you say “Bryce is doing good”, a literal reading of this draws the question “A good what?”. If you say “Bryce is doing well” you know that “well” is modifying “doing”. Even “Bryce is well” means “Bryce is healthy”.
“So what?” asks Hypothetical, Doesn’t-care-about-English-person. “EVERYONE understands that ‘Bryce is doing good’ means the same as ‘Bryce is doing well’. You are making a distinction without merit.”
Not so, my hypothetical, hopefully-not-a-strawman friend. The distinctions between different kinds of words build up. It is true that the distinction between “well” and “good” will probably be a half-a-second misunderstanding. But what about other words? Hubby is fond of using the phrase “I’ll borrow it to you”. What he means is “I’ll lend it to you”. Again, someone may say this is without distinction. Okay, fine. Now think of a contract where we are lending money. Think about how much easier it is to have the words “borrower” and “lender”. Think about how confusing it is if you had “borrower” and “borrowee” would be***.
Then, think about when words start to be sacrificed for propaganda. Think about terms that used to be fairly benign, or even had pleasant connotations, which have now been have been co-opted by specific groups, so they no longer have the same meaning. How many people seem to think that “facist” or “communist” means “Generic phrase for someone who has different political opinions from me, so I think are bad”? How many people have heard (or been guilty of) using the words “racist” or “sexist” used as “generic word meaning bad”. This is because we don’t consider it important to be rigorous with our language.
Additionally, when we start sacrificing precision in language, we start sacrificing our ability to communicate complicated thoughts. George Orwells 1984 spoke to this; why have the word “bad” when you can just have “ungood”? Why have “great” when you can just have “plusgood”?
And I am firmly convinced that sloppiness with “meaningless” distinctions makes it easier to abuse the definition of more important words. In martial arts, you don’t let someone with a sloppy stance get a pass because they land punches. In basketball, if you toss by taking swinging your hands like a pendulum you don’t get to evade criticism because, hey, the ball still gets to the person your passing it to. So, why would ignoring the foundations of language be acceptable?
Language is a dynamic, fluid thing. I don’t expect (or endorse) laws to be passed mandating English to remain static, and indeed, that would lead to greater misunderstandings. But, language cannot just be noise. It has to mean something, and it has to be something we can all agree on. Communication is hard enough with out further handicapping ourselves. An English major is not a simpleton, or a loafer, but a person who wants to be a rigorous guardian of our communication medium. This should be a position of respect, not a position to be denigrated.
*For those of you wishing to avoid the 30 seconds of googling, but can’t grope back to your last relevant math class, the Pythagorean Theorem states: in a right triangle, where the hypotenuse is c and a and b consist of the remaining sides a^2 + b^2 = c^2. (Side not: the hypotenuse is the side opposite of the right angle.)
**If you ever want to know how much space you’ll need if you want to put a couch in the corner of the room, PT is your friend.
***I should know; I’ve had to read contracts where they put those words in instead of “lender” and “borrower”.
Oh, thank you for this post! I’m a writer, majored in English, then got my MFA in writing, and I have to add that it bugs me that other courses of study result in a profession, of sorts, while majoring in English doesn’t bring much respect. I have friends who majored in engineering of various kinds, and when they graduated, they became engineers. I majored in English and writing, but people still call me “an English major.” I am NOT an English major anymore. I finished school, damnit, and I’m a writer now. Granted, I’m not a nationally known novelist, but I am dedicated to my craft, the one I have spent years studying just like engineers study math and physics. Writing, editing, and teaching language are not the most lucrative career paths, but they are worthy of respect.
I’d like to point out that people who aren’t English majors often are effective communicators and, contrary to the picture you seem to be attempting to paint, are not all malicious destroyers of language. I will not debate that some people are, but you seem to be implying that the only people who can rightfully defend our language are people who have studied it as deeply as you have. I would like to remind you that English is a natural language, and as such its rules have evolved over time, and continue to evolve.
Love,
Your friendly neighborhood engineer.
Everybody thinks that engineers are mathematical savants that can’t write a decent essay or chunk of prose to save their lives.
And one can’t really defend oneself because then, you know, it sounds like bragging…Well, uh, actually, I’m good at math AND english… blush!
But to leap to Antigone’s defense here, I don’t think (and also don’t get the impression from what she wrote) that she’s talking about non-English majors specifically sneering at English majors. I think she’s more referring to the sneers deposited upon English majors by the general public who often view majoring in English as something people only do because they either aren’t interested in a REAL subject (cuz like everbody talks American already, don’ they?) or because they don’t really want to work hard in college.
Lisa, the perky girl engineer
“Bryce is doing good” means “Bryce is doing good things” or “Bryce is working on the side of right”, surely? ‘Good’ is also a noun, after all.
Actually, TomBrand, I never was an English major (I was a minor for a brief time, but never a major). Out of the near dozen various majors and minors I pursued for awhile, English was probably the shortest.
I’d also like to have some sort of evidence that I was painting anyone as “malicious”, nor did I say language was static. And, in fact quoting myself I did point out:
Additionally, I never said (nor implied) that people cannot be effective communicators any more than people who are not mathematicians utilize math theories or people who are not doctors can do first aid. I am not an engineer, but I demonstrated that I can engineer an effective sandbag dike this last week (or helped). But if I were to say to you “just because you studied more doesn’t mean that I can’t build anything” you would (rightly) claim “I never said that”, and quickly be insulted that your years of study didn’t mean anything.
Froth-
If what was meant was “Bryce is doing good things” than the word “things” has to be included (because what the heck is good modifying otherwise). In that phrase, “good” is used as an adjective. If we’re using “good” as a noun, than the phrase “Bryce is doing good” makes even less sense; it would either be “Bryce is doing a good” or “Bryce is doing goods”, and both of those imply a weird sex act.
“Bryce is doing good” makes sense when Bryce is A Heroic Paladin Of Righteousness and can’t help himself. (The OED seems to list this usage as a phrase.)
Thank you for printing this. I majored in English, minored in History and am thinking about returning to school to continue my studies. At the moment I am tutoring college students in a number of different subjects related to Liberal Arts and I am dismayed at what I see. I have students who are 18-20 and they can’t even write a simple five paragraph essay. They can’t even read on an 8th grade level. I find myself thinking – how in god’s name were you passed on from one grade to the next when you can’t even write a basic sentence? I’m guessing this is all part of Dubya’s brilliant No Child Left Behind – focusing so much on passing standardized multiple choice tests that they can’t even read.
Froth beat me to it, I see. The first example use that springs to my mind is Tom Lehrer’s Old Dope Peddler, “Doing well by doing good”.
I’m a heroic paladin of righteousness. In World of Warcraft.
Antigone, I actually do appreciate the point you’re making here, but I would just like to point out that for someone who loves math, the first few paragraphs you wrote would likely put them strongly on the defensive, which is hardly the most conducive state to listen to your arguments. I was all ready to fire off an angry rebuttal myself when I decided to reread your arguments and realized you never actually said what I thought you had. Ironically, considering the topic of your post, I think I understand what you meant, but I don’t think you phrased it very effectively, and I’ll explain where I think you went wrong.
I think the first real problem is the word ‘simple,’ in the second paragraph. Math is many things, but in no way is it simple (although I agree that parts of it can be simple, especially those parts taught to beginners). It is very often elegant, but in a blog post about the importance of language, we can agree the two words are very different. Coming right after mentioning about how you’ve never really used the Pythagorean Theorem outside of school, it sounds like you’re deriding math. Once again, I repeat that I know you are not, but that is the impression it gives. Not to mention that your example is extremely unfair to math. The Pythagorean Theorem is not comparable to the difference between ‘well’ and ‘good’, it’s much closer to sentence diagrams, which you will agree is something else very few people will ever use outside of school. The Pythagorean Theorem (and other geometric equations like it) is useful for understanding how shapes fit together and easily showing the universal applicability of math, and the the sentence diagram is useful for understanding how words in a sentence fit together. Forgetting the difference between ‘well’ and ‘good’ is more like forgetting how to divide numbers correctly (which a fair number of people do, to be honest). So already from the beginning, it looks like you’re being unfair to math, although I truly believe you did not mean it that way.
You then follow this up with a statement that language is more important than math (or at least more necessary, in some cases, which is a very unclear statement, and seems to imply that you meant more important), and follow it with another example that seems really unfair to math. You say that of course without math, building a skyscraper would be impossible, but then you ask “without language, how are you going to coordinate with everyone to make the sky-scraper at all?” You are comparing the knowledge it would take to build a skyscraper with knowing how to talk. I trust you can see how this looks like you’re underestimating or even just insulting the vast engineering problems of building a skyscraper (which really are very intense). Not to mention that your example as it’s stated does nothing to further your point, either, since you are arguing for English Majors, and you do not need an English major at a construction site to help people communicate correctly, but you definitely need an engineer to help workers build correctly. It is only with the last sentence of your post that you get to the argument that would apply here, that we need English majors as guardians of our language. I believe you meant to compare the engineer making sure the building is constructed correctly with the English major making sure the language continues to communicate clearly, but you never indicate a connection between the two, and they are separated by the bulk of the post, so it is easy to see how it would appear as if you are denigrating math, especially for someone already put on the defensive by your second paragraph.
Sorry for the long post, Antigone, but I thought you might appreciate this analysis for any future posts in this series, and it also explains the rather hostile reaction of TomBrend. I’m a physicist myself, and as I stated, this post rubbed me the wrong way on first reading as well.
Captain-
Language is the medium that we communicate with, but I can’t help what you bring to the table any more than I can help what I hear. I referred to the fact that communication is difficult enough as is, without using incorrect language. Communication and English are seprate things, though there is some overlap. Please do not confuse the means of communication with communication itself.
As for the specific points, I used the word “simple” (and then paralleled it with “elegant”) in reference to the fact that in mathematic proofs you are looking for the least amount of steps; ie the “Simple proof” or the “elegant proof”. I thought that people who studied math would catch the reference. Even without that background, I was using “simple” to have positive connotations, which I think should be clear in context.
As for “necessity” and “importance” I used the two different words because they have two different meanings. Importance is a value judgment, and changes based on what your goals and values are. Necessity relates to survival. Though I did not expound upon it in this article, I think a strong case can be made that our major evolutionary strategy rests on our ability to speak and write. I am not saying that engineering problems are equivalent to learning how to speak in any way (and am actually very confused on where you are getting this conflation), what I am saying is that without language we don’t survive; skyscrapers are only something we can do after we have survival down. While I am not an engineer, I think that it’s a fairly obvious point that they are exceptionally difficult to plan and build.
Finally, I am a bit curious as to why you would be immediately put on the defensive in the first place. Engineers are near universally regarded as intelligent, necessary, and this is reflected in their salary. Off the top of my head, the only stereotypes I can think of is that they are robotic and/or socially clueless. So, I’m wondering where this base defensiveness comes from where just because I’m trying to make the case that English is valuable necessarily means that math is not. Heck, the title of this post is “Stop bad-mouthing liberal arts” not “let’s bad-mouth engineering”. There is no zero sum here.
[Damn double post! I fucked up a tag in the first one, so feel free to delete my first post.] [Done! --ed.]
[Hello! I write this as someone with a math degree, but who couldn't stand engineering while I was briefly majoring in it.]
I thought Captain made it pretty clear; the problem is that you’re trying to highlight the importance of language by pointing out that language is in some way prior to mathematics, and you try to illustrate this by showing that very basic language skills are a prerequisite for the products of very advanced math. This does not show what I (and presumably Captain) took to be your point, that language is a prerequisite for mathematical or engineering feats, and should be given respect on that basis.
You can say that skyscrapers are a modern convenience not necessary for survival, but the proper parallel to that is a language-based modern convenience such as the novel, which are also not necessary for survival. You can say that being able to communicate with each other is necessary, but the proper parallel to that is that toolmaking, the precursor to engineering, is ALSO necessary for survival. You’re doing (I’m sure without intending to) the mirror-image of snotty engineers who say things like, “No one NEEDS novels to survive; without the ability to craft knives and spears, we’d never had progressed to the point where we had the time to spend writing.” It’s not fair to compare a very basic proficiency in one skill to the very advanced product of another.
I thought this was kind of funny, almost like an after-school special where we learn we’re not so different after all.
I think both language-types and math-types take their own advantages for granted, and inflate the importance of the others’. The professional respect you describe in the OP probably seems a lot more important when you regularly get dumped on for being “just” an “English major,” but really, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. One, that respect can dissipate just as easily as respect gained via any other fashion; two, while professional respect is nice to have, it doesn’t really convert into any tangible benefits well. Respect doesn’t necessarily make you any happier, or a more interesting person. Sure, people say, “Wow!” when I tell them I’m writing a calculus book, but after that, what good does it do me? Not much.
And finally, probably the biggest reason math-types are sometimes touchy about their subject being put down is that it’s not really as highly-regarded as you might think. I assure you, if you think English majors are tired of hearing, “When am I gonna have to know THIS,” math majors are really tired of hearing it. Not to mention the hordes of people who can’t do even ridiculously elementary math; the people who can’t figure out a 20% tip without help, or whose answer to, “What is 4 times 120?” is, “Whatever the calculator says.”
(The fact that this set of people probably has a VERY high overlap with the people who cannot be bothered to care about their language is not, I think, a coincidence.)
Thank you for responding MH. I tried to with my second paragraph point out that I thought math was extremely important; I think it’s a crime at how quickly people run to their calculators for basic things (but then again, who am I to judge? If I want to figure out a 20% tip, I calculate a 10% tip and double it).
It may be a matter of different experiences; I never pursued math-heavy degrees so I will defer to your experience on this one. I remember way back in high school others saying (including myself) “Why would I ever need this”* but I ignored that, as high schoolers will say “Why would I ever need this” to absolutely anything. My focus was on adults who say things as what I referenced about English.
*Funny story; my Calc AP teacher finally got sick of me asking this, so sent me to write a paper on the subject. After turning in a joke paper (Things calculus is good for: the textbook makes a great doorstop, and things of that vein), I finally did some serious research into the practical application of calculus, but more importantly, I did some research into why she seemed to think it was so great in the first place. I am never going to insult anyone in a math-heavy profession ever again.
Antigone, sorry I didn’t respond earlier, I’ve had a busy day. I think MH does a good job anyway, and I would just like to add a few points. First, I would like to say that I understood what you meant by simple, just that the first instinct of a math-y person reading this defensively would be to see it the way I laid out in my last post. I didn’t go into this in my last post (because it was getting too long already), but any math/science person is going to be wary almost immediately into this post. The problem is, although you know and I know this is not zero sum, enough people automatically treat every situation like it’s zero-sum that its something you learn to automatically fight against, as I’m sure you know. I’m pretty sure this is the mistake TomBrend made, assuming that you thought the situation was zero-sum.
Also, your first few sentences does look like it could be addressing arrogant scientists. I don’t know if you know any personally, but nobody in math/science doesn’t know someone who looks down at every other academic discipline (even the other sciences, no matter which one you’re in) as obviously being easier than theirs, and English is among the most often bashed. It’s practically a stereotype, if not actually one, and any scientist/engineer/mathematician will be used to and tired of being conflated with these people. Thus, once again, to someone like that, your first few sentences will sound like you’re addressing them, and in a manner that’s guaranteed to annoy, as well. The rest of your first paragraph makes it clear that it is not these people you’re talking to, but if you’re skimming, you probably won’t catch that.
Finally, this is something you won’t see in engineering (or at least, not too much), but will in the sciences, and all too often in math, the question “Yeah, but what is it good for?” This is the primary reason that I, or any math/science person, will be automatically defensive reading a post like this. You obviously don’t need a lesson in this, but you would not believe how many people, even educated people, do not see a point in doing any research that does not have immediate practical applications, and I have probably seen at least as many sneers about “wasting money” as you have seen about “English majors.” This is what MH is talking about in his last paragraph, I believe.
Sorry again for all the words, I am just horrible at brevity.
It’s easy to get defensive when discussing this, because the arts/science rivalry is nearly as old and beloved as the English/French one. I have great respect for arts students, because there’s no way I could write a ten-thousand-word essay. I have trouble with one thousand word discussions in lab reports, and I have concrete data to discuss in them.
In return, I expect and usually get respect for my awesome spatial rotation powers and ability to make coloured fireballs using common household equipment. It’s a happy system of mutual respect, but it can easily become a very uinhappy system of mutual contempt for the people who can’t do your subject.
It’s funny, but I (like Froth) feel pretty much the exact opposite of that.
I am always awestruck by my writer friend’s output, and very envious of my musical friends’ abilities. It actually bugs me when people are impressed by math work, because from my perspective, it’s so easy that anyone ought to be able to do it!
The solution is to be good at everything.
I’m just sayin.
Lisa KS-
A perfect solution. Much like Communism, anarchy, and literal interpretations of the constitution.
I sense you lack humor on this subject, hopefully not as a function of this comments thread.
I meant it as a joke. Look a smiley
You know what’s weird? It’s all well and good saying ‘well’ is an adverb, and ‘good’ is an adjective (or occasionally an abstract noun), but then when you meet people:
“Hi, how are you?”
“I’m very well, thank you.”
Nice post.
And math is itself a kind of language. There are signs, signifiers and signified. It’s a means by which humans have taught themselves to talk about both everyday physical realities (“I have a whole bunch of apples, how many ?”) and the more abstract bits (“how did all this light get over here so damn fast ?”) Math doesn’t happen without language.
I feel like the age-old liberal arts/science debate is just another culture war. Someone devalues engineering/math as “just a trade” while English/language arts is, well, an “art.” Or someone paints a picture of stupid, head-in-the-clouds poets and treats language like a luxury and math/science as the only necessity. I say it’s time to drop all that, and to recognize how each is enriched by the other.