A guy sitting a few rows behind Chandra and Vanessa called out, "It's spelled W-O-R-D-S!"
"Oh, I see," said Professor Wells, feigning ignorance and suddenly giving the air of someone who hadn't realized the information he had just been provided. "But why?"
Everyone in the classroom looked around at each other, unsure of how to answer this question. Finally, a young woman in the back of the room called out, "But that's the way the word is supposed to be spelled!"
"Ahh! That's how it's supposed to be. The convention of spelling! Of course. But isn't this class about the use, misuse, and abuse of words?" He paused for a moment and added, "Now. You all knew exactly what I was saying with this title page in spite of the spelling convention, right?"
The students started nodding slowly, with a few members of the class mumbling, "Right."
"So I just misused the word 'words' and you still understood what I was saying. One thing you'll learn in this class is that sometimes it's not as important 'how' you say something as long as you can convey the proper meaning of what you're trying to say. Now. Would anyone disagree with me when I say that the way it's presented here, as W-U-R-D-Z, is probably closer to the actual pronunciation of the individual letters than the convention I knowingly defied?"
A few students shook their heads but everyone remained silent.
"This is because the written language changes much more slowly than the spoken language. The human tongue is naturally lazy and tends towards things that are easier to pronounce. The written language is much more disinclined to change because," he gestured towards the girl who explained the spelling convention, "there are conventions in written language that we are all somewhat bound to uphold.
"In this class, we'll be talking about using, abusing, and misusing words. When and why it's done, how it's done, and the consequences of doing it. We will be defying conventions and, as a part of a class experiment, we're going to see how -- if at all -- we can influence change in the language. So there are a few things we need to be mindful of."
He clicked on the remote in his hand and the PowerPoint slide changed to read "Words are metaphors."
"First," he said loudly before returning to his normal tone of voice, "Remember that all words are metaphors for whatever concepts they represent. If a language needs a word, it will likely either acquire the word from another language or just invent it on its own. The English language is particularly good at doing both of these things. Over time, the meanings of words can and will change."
He looked over the classroom and saw his students scribbling down his message. He smiled broadly and paused until the pens started to slow down. He clicked the remote again. The next slide said, "Nothing is off-limits."
"Second! We must be willing to embrace taboos and shatter conventions. We cannot do this unless we embrace words we might not like. Knowing where a word comes from and why it exists must be the first step. Let's use an easy example. Think of the name 'James'. That's a good, formal name, right? But the familiar version of the name is 'Jim.' Can anyone think of an offensive word that underwent this same vowel shift? Long 'A' to short 'I'?"
There was a low mumble throughout the class but either no one knew, no one wanted to hazard a guess, or anyone who knew was too afraid to admit to knowing.
"All right. I'll say it. The Spanish word for black is 'negro.'. And the 'E' of that word is the same vowel sound as what we saw in 'James'. So there was a familiarizing vowel shift from that, that gave us the word 'nigger'. Of course it's a hateful word today but at its heart, I don't think it always was. It was almost a friendly word when it first started out in the language."
He clicked on the remote again and the next slide appeared on the screen. "Minimize ambiguity."
"Finally! An important point that bears making in terms of the actual study of language is that, as long as you can express what you actually mean, the words themselves become secondary. You can say something using five words or fifty words. As long as your meaning isn't lost in the words, they're both correct."
He turned the lights on and faced the classroom, smiling broadly. "So let's have fun with this! That's about it for today. Please pick up your syllabus for this class up here on my desk on the way out. My office location and hours are at the top of the syllabus, but I would like to warn you that my office is fairly small, so I don't think I can actually receive more than two students at any given time. More than that, and you'll probably need to wait outside the office until the student in front of you leaves.
"So, without further ado, have a great week everyone! I'll see you all next week."
The students all stood up and filed out of the classroom, picking up copies of the syllabus on their way out. When Vanessa and Chandra approached his desk, he smiled at them. "I hope you two didn't mind my little ruse at the beginning of the class. I like to do that kind of stuff, especially when we talk about defying convention."
"Not at all, Professor, or, should I say, Justin?" giggled Chandra.
Vanessa nodded her agreement.
He laughed. "See you two next week, unless you want to talk to me in my office before then." He winked at Vanessa as he picked up his satchel and walked out of the room.
Chapter 2
Vanessa posted the syllabus for her Linguistics class on the cork board above her desk in her dorm room. She let out a sigh as she thought of the handsome teacher who, she wouldn't admit to anyone quite yet, impressed her tremendously. Here was a rulebreaker, a trendsetter, an iconoclast. And whatever else she might say, she really had thought he was just another student, so at the very least, he looked young enough to be a student.
She made a note of his office hours. He was in his office on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, which meant that if she could make the time, she might be able to see him in his office the following day. Should she go see him this early in the semester, or should she wait?
She replayed his first class over and over in her head. If she was going to stop into his office, she would need some kind of excuse, some pretense for going, and wanting to get a closer look at his well-chiseled face and physique really wasn't a good enough reason.
He talked about the tongue being naturally lazy. What did he mean by that? She got that the spoken word changes more quickly than the written word. After all, there's no shortage of words that aren't pronounced anything like the way they're spelled. In some cases, different people will pronounce the same word differently. But actually being lazy? That didn't make sense to her. She decided that she'd use this point as her excuse to go down to his office.
She decided to do some research into that but the only information she could find of any real consequence was a condition referred to as "Lazy Tongue Syndrome," which apparently is a problem where people (usually children just learning to speak) can talk but are not fully understood.
She sighed and decided that yes, this was a fairly good excuse to go see Professor Wells. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too transparent.
Chapter 3
Vanessa glanced down at her watch as she got off the elevator in the building that housed Professor Wells's office. 10:45 am. She mused that showing up about midway through his office hours, she wouldn't seem too eager. She hadn't told anyone -- not even Chandra -- that she was planning on going down to see him, but it felt like time dragged in getting to this point. She wondered if anyone noticed the bounce in her step as she walked down the corridor towards his office.
When she arrived, his door was closed, so she decided to loiter around some of the nearby desks. She saw an administrative assistant, made a note of her name, and asked, "Hi, Emily. Is Professor Wells meeting with someone right now?"
"I don't think so. He usually keeps his door closed."
"But his office hours are..."
"Right now. Just go up and knock."
