Letter to the Editor: A Word to the Wise
By Joe Herring ’55
Published on Friday, March 5, 2010
To the Editor:
Zachary Gottlieb ’10 is both funny and accurate in his take on Dartmouth speech patterns (“Eating My Words,” Feb. 24). The pattern I remember from the1950s seemed to thrive on rapid, functional inelegance. I had hoped that the arrival of Dartmouth women in the ’70s would produce an upgrade. It seems that what we got instead is an intensification of what we already had.
It may be that our very ancient cultural compulsion to identify ourselves as the un-Harvard is the explanation. One would hope that a time comes when our speech patterns will reflect more fully the wealth of our cultural diversity, interest in ideas and intellectual firepower.
Joe Herring ’55 Alpharetta, Georgia