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Author: Richard S. Mitchell
Added by: djasonfleming
Added Date: 2011-02-01
Language: English
Publishers: The Objectivish Library
Collections: folkscanomy philosophy, folkscanomy, additional collections
Total Size: 259.75 KB
Extensions: epub, torrent
Rights: Richard Mitchell passed away before Creative Commons licensing was created. However, he did grant a blanket permission to plagiarize his work. In his newsletter, The Underground Grammarian, Volume 9, Number 7, from November 1985:
Freedom of the Press and License, Too
WE are often asked permission to reprint or duplicate or in some other way to circulate the pieces that appear in THE UNDERGROUND GRAMMARIAN. It always seems to us a good idea, and we always grant such permission. In fact, you may take this little notice as prior written permission to do likewise in any fashion that seems good to you. We neither ask nor expect any form of payment, but we would like to be cited as the source. But if admitting that you read this sheet will get you into hot water, we will be the first to understand.Later, in 1991 (Volume 15, Number 1), he added this addendum:
ALSO, as you do or should know, permission to quote or to reprint any part or even all of any issue of THE UNDERGROUND GRAMMARIAN is invariably granted to anyone for any purpose. One reader write recently to apologize for plagiarism, since he had woven some of our stuff into a speech he had given and made no attribution. Since then we have also had word of a man who wrote, to the editor of some newspaper, a letter that was, in fact, made entirely of our words. The paper caught him, chastised him, and barred him from their letters column forever. Somehow, we feel that something only sort of like justice has been served here. So now we have to add a new rule. Plagiarism is also permitted. Go ahead. Make our day."Based on the above, and on Mr. Mitchell's explicit approval of posting his newletters and books online for free, it seems entirely plausible that he would have no objection to issuing his work under the CC0 license.
Year: 1979
License: CC0 1.0 Universal
Downloads: 810
Views: 860
Total Files: 4
Media Type: texts
Total Files: 2
Description
In Less Than Words Can Say, Richard Mitchell lets rip the most devastating exposé to date of our rampant misuse of English. A Don Quixote — Savonarola might be more apt — of language, he wages war on its perverters, from teachers and deans to politicians and bureaucrats, whose consistently overblown prose offers us inanity in the guise of wisdom. Mitchell's cantankerous crusade indicts government agency "chairs" for the intimidating and obfuscating "legalese" of their profession, obsequious grantseekers who supplicate foundations in time-honored cant, and aspiring academics who speak in the Divine Passive. According to Mitchell, this bureaucratic jargon is turning us into a nation of baffled, inept, frustrated, and — ultimately — violent people, and the public schools are to blame. For the past thirty-five years, they have taught children to socialize rather than to read, write, and cipher — the only disciplines that foster clear language and logical thought. Mitchell's alarming conclusion is that our schools are turning out illiterates who will never manage their lives — because, lacking the power of language, they can't think. Richard Mitchell was a professor of English at Glassboro State College and editor and publisher of the controversial monthly publication The Underground Grammarian.
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