Imagine: It only took him all those years and God knows how much money to realize something I’d figured out by 16.
Also, even without a Ph.D, I know the difference between “straightened” and “straitened.”
Josh Marshall says goodbye to the academic life
Straitened? You mean that non-tenured academic life, compared to something similar in the (let’s say) corporate life, isn’t penurious?
I think in this case, Ms. Madrak, he actually did mean “straiten” – in the sense of “being restricted in freedom or scope”.
Though I admit, until now I have never seen anybody use some form of “strait” as a verb.
Anyway, if you had it figured out by 16 that you wanted to help people know the real truth about what was going on, as opposed to either the party/corporate line about what is supposed to be going on, then good for you. You chose well.
I think I was 19 when I realized that to succeed in college, you needed to identify with upper middle class values and perspective. Nothing I have seen since has dissuaded me of that opinion.
Agree with Russ on “straitened.” Josh chose a very good word to describe his fears and feelings about the academic life. Nicely written personal essay. However, I wish he had stayed a little closer to his area of expertise and used it to place current political events in historical perspective in his blog. That could have been a rather unique contribution. The early TPM was the first blog I read consistently and recommended to friends. These days I rarely bother with Josh’s empire due to it’s partisan loyalty and it’s odd nose for prurient scandal.
Ugh. “its” Possessive, not contraction.
Adams – Agreed; 7-8 years ago I would head to TPM frequently – once upon a time they had a unique perspective in following some stories/leads other sites did not cover. Now, not nearly so much. I only very rarely take a look there these days.
He originally used “straightened.” I’m not normally a typo Nazi, but if you have a PhD, you should know the difference.
“I learned a huge amount in graduate school about how to think and also how to write. I feel like I use what I learned every day in doing what I do today.”
Au contraire — he didn’t learn beans about writing in grad school or anywhere else, judging from the egocentrism, turgidity and embarrassing grammatical deficiencies of the essay in question. Stuff like this wouldn’t earn a passing grade in freshman English at a good college.
Ah, I see now. Mr./Dr. PhD should have
struck through the originaland then added the correct word, as is the way on the innertoobs. And I agree with Izquierdo about the somewhat garbly writing in that essay. Looks like he didn’t edit it at all. Well, except for thestraightenedpart.