The Substitute--That is to say--the Person Who Took the Place of Our Regluar Teacher for a Limited Amount of Time--SunWinks! Sunday Gather Writing Essential January 27, 2013 Language Abuse (SunWE)

“So who’s our sub?  “

“Got me.  Some professor from—“

Tom stopped talking when a man in a well-tailored suit walked into the classroom.

“Greetings and salutations, students of higher learning.” The man said.  “I am—“

He turned and wrote on the board as he spoke—

“Professor Edward James Pettigrew, PhD, Esquire.  “

He turned to the class.  “Today we shall expand the gray matter that are your brains by discussing—that is, expressing your ideas—about poetry forms. 

“Some of these can be lengthy, in that they have many words, and some of them can be contrite, in which they have less.  There are many formations of poetry—some that count syllabics, that is, how many beats in a sentence as in music—and some count words, or the pieces of verbalism in which we speak…  “

BAM!

Tom jerked his head up when John smacked him in the shoulder with his elbow.

“Dude, wake up!  Class is over!  “

Tom blinked.  “Huh?  Oh, yeah….”

He grabbed his backpack and followed John out the door into the hall.

“Man, that dude talked a lot.  I didn’t understand most of what he said.”  John moaned.  “You’re lucky you slept through most of it.  “

Tom rubbed his eye.  “Most surely.  The professor—that is, the man who was teaching us—had such long-winded verbality that the lids above my eyes couldn’t help but want to shut themselves!  “

The Prompt

Write a sketch featuring a self-important character who uses fractured, jargony, wordy English, and capture that in the dialogue.

• Put SunWE in the title and tags.
• Share your post with Gather Writing Essential group.
• Indicate in some way which devices or techniques I should be paying attention to. (If responding to today’s prompt, put Language Abuse in the title field.)
• This prompt does not turn into a pumpkin a week (or even two) from today. If your piece isn’t done in the next week or two, get it in when you can. This is supposed to be fun.
• I will comment on every submission and include a link to it in the next column.
• If you would like a little more academic critique—but still very friendly and positive—include the word "rigorous" in your post (e.g. "rigorous critique wanted").