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.)
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.)