From the Archive
Wednesday, September 04, 2002
I was in a writing course once and the instructor started off by asking people for their favorite word.
I felt like a freak for picking what I did, but that’s okay, because everybody there, from the buzzcut lesbian to the grannies with their eyeglasses on decorator chains claimed that their favorite words were “love” “hope” “peace” “forgiveness,” etcetera.
BARF!
Mine was “wallapalooza” which is as far as I’m concerned as fine a word as you will find anywhere. I got it from Oprah, which is an excellent provenance for a word.
To his credit, the instructor’s face fell. Oh dear, you could see him think, one of THOSE groups.
He dropped his usual references to Greek tragedy and substituted what he could remember of Agatha Christie, James Herriot, and Jane Austen.
I still feel bad for him, and that was three years ago.
raincoaster 
Don’t feel bad for him, he still got paid. Assuming this was post-secondary what kind of instructor asks such a stupid question? And has lesson plans for barffy responses? Mine would have been “moneyback”.
Well how can you teach a bunch of so-called writers who really just want to get on Oprah? The course was about architectonics, which you can’t really understand without looking at the words themselves, so I think the question was appropriate. It was also almost completely misunderstood by the Coldwater Creek-wearing, pressed-flower-adorned journal-writing, home schooling soccer mom class.