Idiom
Live in a foreign country or begin learning a foreign language and you might become more aware of idioms. Many of my students would ask me the meaning of certain idioms. They are difficult to define and at time confusing if you think about them too long.
I came across this article in my daily readings. My eye has been on Reed College ever since I read Blue Like Jazz. As an institution of higher education, that seems to be its primary object. Teach students and cut out the rest (like Greek clubs and intercollegiate sports). That article discusses the unofficial school motto of "Communism, Atheism, and Free Love" in the context of the school's founder and first president, William Trufant Foster. He was a radical, intellectual and took a hard line on hasty American involvement in foreign conflicts. For this, he was attacked by the community that he was helping to improve. Through this struggle, because of his unique approach to education, and because of the faculty and staff that shared his vision and surrounded him, the unofficial motto came and stuck.
I have always thought of it as an inside joke. A sardonic, Spanky-and-Our-Gang password to unlock the clubhouse door. There was something playfully subversive yet purposely archaic about it, even in my student days before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the scourge of AIDS, and the rise of the religious right. That its irony was largely lost on the outside world only reinforced the secret confederacy.
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Some alumni have told me that they would like to see the slogan retired. After nearly 100 years of usage, they consider it an anachronism that no longer speaks for Reed, and instead places the college in a polarizing stance to the outside world. That, however, has been precisely its purpose all along. As Burton Clark points out in The Distinctive College, the spirit of intellectual rebellion upon which Reed was founded demands that the community “continue to define itself in ways antithetical to those of outsiders.” To that end, the slogan has become, for better or worse, part of the Reed “brand.”
John P. Sheehy on the unofficial motto
I was skeptical on the motto, but upon further investigation, I realized that the saying had partially begun to function as any idiom would. Idioms are composed of words that when placed together create a new meaning that cannot be found in the individual words themselves. For those inside of Reed it is a reminder of the principles and the man that created the university. For those outside Reed, or outside the understanding of that grouping of words, it sounds un-American, pagan, and amoral. It seems to function like an idiom.
I leave you with these little idioms:
-Let Jesus come into your heart
-Have you been in the word lately
I came across this article in my daily readings. My eye has been on Reed College ever since I read Blue Like Jazz. As an institution of higher education, that seems to be its primary object. Teach students and cut out the rest (like Greek clubs and intercollegiate sports). That article discusses the unofficial school motto of "Communism, Atheism, and Free Love" in the context of the school's founder and first president, William Trufant Foster. He was a radical, intellectual and took a hard line on hasty American involvement in foreign conflicts. For this, he was attacked by the community that he was helping to improve. Through this struggle, because of his unique approach to education, and because of the faculty and staff that shared his vision and surrounded him, the unofficial motto came and stuck.
I have always thought of it as an inside joke. A sardonic, Spanky-and-Our-Gang password to unlock the clubhouse door. There was something playfully subversive yet purposely archaic about it, even in my student days before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the scourge of AIDS, and the rise of the religious right. That its irony was largely lost on the outside world only reinforced the secret confederacy.
...
Some alumni have told me that they would like to see the slogan retired. After nearly 100 years of usage, they consider it an anachronism that no longer speaks for Reed, and instead places the college in a polarizing stance to the outside world. That, however, has been precisely its purpose all along. As Burton Clark points out in The Distinctive College, the spirit of intellectual rebellion upon which Reed was founded demands that the community “continue to define itself in ways antithetical to those of outsiders.” To that end, the slogan has become, for better or worse, part of the Reed “brand.”
John P. Sheehy on the unofficial motto
I was skeptical on the motto, but upon further investigation, I realized that the saying had partially begun to function as any idiom would. Idioms are composed of words that when placed together create a new meaning that cannot be found in the individual words themselves. For those inside of Reed it is a reminder of the principles and the man that created the university. For those outside Reed, or outside the understanding of that grouping of words, it sounds un-American, pagan, and amoral. It seems to function like an idiom.
I leave you with these little idioms:
-Let Jesus come into your heart
-Have you been in the word lately
Idiom or not, that slogan doesn’t exactly help the image of a notoriously liberal college. If fact, it would surprise no one if those three ideals are espoused by many members of the school. It is almost funny how, of the three, free love would probably be most problematic. I would imagine they would want it changed to Communism, Atheism, and Safe Sex. :)
ReplyDeleteCan an idiom be created within a small group even though the common use of the grouping of words is vastly different? Is dirtbag an idiom even though every person except a few Vincents would find such a word offensive?
Blue like Jazz sounds interesting. Will we get a book review of it?