“What would this idle babbler wish to say?” (Acts 17:18).
An English Professor has written an article entitled “Masters of Babble.” The subtitle is, “Turning Language Into Stone.” The article is about one of the professor ’s “Creative Writing” students. The student is bright, scores the highest grades, but never learns to express himself succinctly in words. For example, on one examination paper, he wrote the following:
The choice of exogenous variables in relation to multi-cholineanity is contingent upon the derivations of certain multiple correlation coefficients.
The professor tried his best to find the meaning of those words. He went over the paper sentence by sentence and word by word without success. Finally, he called in the student himself. “That statement, what does it mean?” he asked. The student tried mightily to explain. At last, by combining their intellectual resources, they discovered what the student was trying to say. It was, simply, “Supply determines demand.”
To view this resource, log in or sign up for a subscription plan
