This week I have extended (doubled?) my vocabulary. One word I like and have already managed to use a lot. The other is monstrous and I hope not to have to use again.
1. Bawbaggery: derogatory term. Means roughly shenanigans. (Hint: don't use it in polite society). Example usage: "That exam was a right piece of bawbaggery". I got this one from a student. I like it. It is satisfying to say, expresses one's feelings and has nice Scottish roots. It is an honest word.
2. Flexibalisation: meaningless jargon. Means roughly.. actually I don't know. I was at a whole meeting about it yesterday morning but I still don't know what it really means. I think in that context it meant "the process of squeezing as much money as possible out of a bunch of students without taking the trouble to educate them" or possibly "The process of sticking everything on a virtual learning environment and assuming people will learn stuff and pay you money for it." I don't like it. It has a nasty taste of institutional jargon, it expresses not very much and its roots come from the university bureaucracy. It is a weasel word.
The obvious way to end this post is to apply one to the other: flexibalisation is bawbaggery.
Look on the bright side (a la Monty Python): every system has ways to *use* it ... "for the greater good of ..." That's one way to weasel the weasels. Or have I become just *too* cynical for my own good?
Posted by: Nicole Cargill-Kipar | May 14, 2008 at 07:58 PM