Crossed-Eyed Headaches Stephen C. Levinson's Pragmatics has got to be one of the driest texts on the subject around. I can't imagine how somebody can actually imagine that long paragraphs of commentaries on single utterances will enable the fellow student or researcher to actually understand what he is trying to explain in simple terms. Of course, I have always believed that academic study is in fact the study of 'how to plagiarize cleverly'; which other field emphasizes so much the importance of the literature review as the academia, I ask you? And then you have scores and scores of pages teaching students how to 'paraphrase', i.e. plagiarize legally.

Levinson, you're smart, I'm not so smart, and its a hell lot of pain trying to transcribe whatever it is you are trying to say, which actually, in fact, we all know, not really what you say, but a paraphrase of what Austin and Searle have recorded.

I'm supposed to talk about life, relationships, sex, bla bla bla...but obviously, the entire day has been spent, helplessly, trying to decipher the higher, academic-stylized language of linguistics. And Levinson is begging to be clawed. I can't wait till the clock strikes 12 tomorrow.   ¶ 19:45