Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for July 30, 2015

Don’t worry, the Professor is a real bad shot.

I have an idea — let’s sic Tenured Professor Bob on Jef the Cyclist!:Two wrongs can make a right, as long as the right wrong wins!

Ok, obviously I haven’t seen the news because I need to ask what happened. Some one go on a killing spree with a bow?

rwillpatbar   Since the ‘less/fewer’ shibboleth is largely foolish he could easily be a descriptive grammarian, and your “Clearly” is clearly not clear!.   Remember: “Peeve not less ye be peeved against!”

That’s fine with things that can be smoothly divided – like weight, time, and distance. For example, “how long should I expect it to take?” “oh, certainly not fewer than about an hour and a quarter” – doesn’t work, does it?But arrows can’t be divided like that without becoming not-arrows (no such thing as “about an arrow and a quarter”). So, for arrows, it’s definitely ‘fewer’, and definitely not ‘less’.

So what’s Pastis’ beef against tenured professors?

Gray area for the archer, black and white for the target.(I could have written “shooter” and “shootee” just for fun)

As a mathematician, we use the continuous/discrete criteria for determining less or fewer. With a discrete quantity, we use fewer. With continuous quantities, we use less. This rule applies even when the object is merely implied in the expression.

why are dentists such sadistic sociopaths?

“Less” goes with “how much”; “fewer” goes with “how many”. Arrows are discrete (you can’t fire 2.718 arrows at someone) so it should definitely be “fewer than three”.

New meanig to the term “publish or perish.”

If someone says something and you know what they mean that is called communicating using language. Nitpicking is futile because language changes with use, it is not static, never was, never will be.

Tenured Professor Bob is as morally ambiguous as he is grammatically deficient. Everyone knows, in the end (or in the back), Only Kill-Shots Count!

Ha! I’d fire the guy on the spot for saying “less” instead of “fewer.”

To those who responded to my query about Pastis’ beef with tenure:Full disclosure – I am a semi-retired teacherAlso, tenure has become a big issue here in New Jersey. Institutes of higher learning have been hiring adjuncts in large numbers with meager salaries and no benefits.So the other side of the coin is tarnished as well.

“Complete job security no matter how badly you perform or behave.”

That’s incorrect. “Job security,” yes. “Complete,” no. Tenure protects the employee from being fired without reason. It requires due process for the terminated. It also does not “guarantee” a job. It only “guarantees” a job as long as the position exists. If the position is no longer needed, the employer can transfer or terminate the employee. Are there abuses? Sure. Just like there are people in any line of work that will use sick days to take a vacation, or use their position to gain favors. But most people want to do their job well, both for personal pride in their work and because they are obligated to do their best. Attack the abuses on a case-by-case basis but not the general intent of tenure. I have seen tenured teachers fired, through due process, for gross misbehavior, breach of contract, and, yes, even incompetence. It may seem that tenure is unnecessary protection for teachers but nothing could be further from the truth. Tenure came about because teachers could be fired on a moment’s notice for any reason and for no reason. (Some districts abused this by letting go of experienced, more expensive teachers and replacing them with younger, less expensive teachers - simply to save money.)

Tenure is not a guarantee of secure employment. Not even close. Strange that as a “Prof’s hubbie” you would perpetuate that myth. One less charitable than myself might think that having gotten something like that so completely wrong, along with the Chuck icon usually used by the childish, that you’re not really married to a “Prof”.

Tenure is not “Complete job security no matter how badly you perform or behave.” Educate yourself before mouthing off.

Can’t tell if Professor Bob has his pants back on or not.

Reason to detest tenured professors:

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/23555

could we please remember that most dentists are nice people, not lion killers or steve martin in “little shop of horrors” otherwise my dad’ll start sounding off about how dentists are badly portrayed in the media. that can take awhile

Bob obviously works for the wrong university… Heck, I pincushioned a colleague here at [REDACTED] with a dozen arrows and I just got a warning letter from HR!

Of course, if he went on a safari and shot a lion, he’d be unemployed in a heartbeat….

I was waiting for Pastis to weigh in on Cecil. very clever.

I can see Rat marching in the classroom and ‘teaching’ those students a thing or two of his own.

Cricket bat included.

xxx

Another cruddy book signing?! Aren’t your jokes bad enough?!

oh stephan, stephan you have broken my heart. i believed you to be an educated man when i selected you as my favorite cartoonist, but you AND the tenured professor need to have your asses fired! It’s “FEWER than three” not “less than” idiota! oh wait, wait, wait, maybe it doesn’t matter that much, cuz you ARE very reliably funny (except leave your poor exwife alone)

Or he could be teaching at my university and get fired for not ‘pulling his weight’ and bringing in enough money by teaching enough students.

Yiddish is a distinct language with an entirely separate grammar, vocabulary and alphabet.Ebonics is a BS scam invented purely to get more money to teach English as a Second Language.

@John SmithI went to a public college that was known for the quality of its faculty. The tenured professors had reached their positions after years of teaching, research, and publishing. We used to joke that once they got tenure, they could spend their time shooting baskets all day. But that wasn’t the case; most of them continued to research and publish in their fields. The vilification of teachers and professors is the latest trend in finding new scapegoats.

Don’t know how old this cartoon is, but it is eerily prophetic, isn’t it?

I didn’t realize that was a bow kill. Thought he lured the Lion out of the area and then shot him with a rifle.To be honest I haven’t read the articles.

I see this degenerating to a row about grammar and everyone wants to take a bow for his brilliant wit

And after three, the answer is a definite no.

With my respects: The non-grammatic discussion missed the point of the story; the emphasis is not on tenure, it’s on back-stabbing and its relation to tenure. And it speaks to many people’s heart.

As about “less”, to my non-native english speakers’ eyes it sounded as a cute piece of jargon (as in “I’ll make some slight fun of what you say by taking the answer to your question and redirecting it, talking about the number itself than the actual counting, you know like slang usually does”).

@mammamoonbeam. Agreed. I’m so tired of educators at all levels being bashed. Race To The Top, No Child Left Behind – no educational reform of any sort (not that I support either one of these disasters) will ever be successful in this country because this country does not value education nor teachers. I am quite disappointed in Pastis, here. Keep this message up and watch this country fall further behind.

Imagine that the governor of a state has a certain economic plan. And suppose a professor at a major university in that state (who knows far more about economics than said governor) criticizes that plan. You have tenure so that the governor cannot simply go and fire the professor for exercising his right to free speech.

The media made a bigger story of Cecil the Lion than Planned Parenthood selling aborted fetus parts. Interesting study in relativity.

Who gets offered tenure anymore, when they can hire adjuncts and pay them less than minimum wage if they’re doing a good job preparing for their classes?

You got it wrong this time, Pastis. Of course Tenured Professor Bob would not lose his job for skewering a colleague in the back. True, taking the shot from a distance with a bow and arrow, rather than planting a knife squarely between the shoulder blades in the time-honored manner, is, well, unsportsmanlike and would look poorly in a post-tenure review. But grounds for dismissal? Good gracious, no! All in a day’s work in the hallowed halls of academe. I believe, however, that emphasizing the B-and-A scenario is a cunning ruse on TPB’s part, playing to the bourgeois morals of the ingenuous Pig, and deflecting attention from the his true professional shortcomings. TPB should know that the countable number of arrows requires “fewer” rather than “less,” and the adjective “gray” requires an adverb as modifier (thus, “really gray,” not “real gray”). Goat would have known better! The question remains whether an illiterate Tenured Professor Bob should stay employed. Tenure, he would surely point out, guarantees freedom of speech, which presumably includes the right to speak ungrammatically. (And if he knew enough to say, “I was speaking colloquially,” he’d likely get a merit raise.)

I believe assault with a deadly weapon would land him in jail and out of a job at the college, tenure or no tenure.