Philosophy Grad student, logic guru, and "Principles of Reasoning" instructor Maria Behnke all but jumped at the chance to claim the initial crown of the 2009-2010 school year. The manner in which she opened Wednesday's class could be considered unprecedented, ill-advised, and implausible. She strode masterfully to the chalkboard and assiduously wrote down her traditionally wayward quote of the day. It read:
"Without logic, reason is useless, with it, you can win arguments and alinenate multitudes."
Now I'm sure this quote is inspirational to someone, but I found a brief grievance with it. Unless the original orator of this quote had a futile lapse in articulation and distorted vocal delivery, the word "alienate" is spelled wrong. This effectively takes all wit, inspiration, and resourcefulness out of the quote immediately, rendering her dismal attempt at motivation painfully short of fulfilling.
However, this would not be the end of her quarrel with fundamental phonics. She moved on to the class example portion of the class. Here is what she scribbled on the board next:
"All film stars are celebraties. Halle Berry is a film star. Therefore, Halle Berry is a celebrity."
After viewing this train wreck I instantly attempted to justify the obvious flaw in my head. She spelled celebrity wrong in the first sentence but spelled it correctly in the second. Perhaps she thought that the entire root of the word changes when it is pluralized. Perhaps she was unclear of the correct spelling so she tried two different formats hoping that she could cut her losses and spell one the right way. Or perhaps she shows a general disregard for her post secondary education by displaying an unabashed ignorance to the content she was writing, reading aloud, and analyzing.
Her downright historic collapse continued to play its way into Person of the Day lore as she wrote her third passage down on the board:
"Some film stars are men. Camron Diaz is a film star. Carmon Diaz is a man."
This curious example was intended to show the class an unreasonable pattern of logic. However, Behnke's lurid linguistics managed to change the course of the whole problem. For all the naive audience of primarily uncomfortable freshman know "Camron" and "Carmon" could be two different people. And the name Carmon, although hardly (if ever) spelled like that, seems to be a realistically masculine name, which would make the example a reasonable pattern of logic. That is all negating the fact that the accurate name of the actress, as known by most people who can pronounce, spell, or define pop culture, is "Cameron Diaz."
Finally, Maria turned to the class after repeating the example and exclaimed the next passage that she would inevitably post on he chalkboard. In my drove of discouragement, I only caught a few of the words she barked. One of them was "inhibitions." I immediately began imagining the ways she could find to screw up this word:
"Young teenagers should never use drugs or alcohol because it lowers inhabitions and blurs judgement."
Just as I suspected, I gave her the hype, and she promptly delivered. She would proceed to avoid the chalkboard the remainder of the class period going an astonishing 0 for 4 at the board in her first complete Philosophy 120 class. So, Maria Behnke, while some teachers command the chalkboard, you have trouble spelling chalkboard, and that is why you are today's person of the day.
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