In a message dated 4/21/99 2:48:30 PM Central Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<<  is it my imagination or is academeze on the comeback? can i blame it on
 foucault (i like to blame most things on foucault) and other french
 pseudo-philosophers who think more about being fancy stilists than presenting
 content, or... has it really always been there and i just missed out during
my
 recent wilderness years?
  >>

     It may be making a comeback.  I was talking to a grad student a few
weeks ago and we got on the subject of  some crank award given for the worst
academic prose.  It went to an anthropologist, and my friend said he really
admires this author's work.   I commented that it was too bad that the
author's apparently good ideas were hidden in jargon and convuluted prose.
He claims that this is by intent, that there is something of a scholarly
trend in which authors are now consciously choosing to write densely in order
to make the reader pay more attention or something like that.  I just looked
at him funny and ordered another Guinness.
         I'll split infinitives if I want to,
                Larry