Kathleen Carlson proposes that “because we are students at a university, we are first given the benefit of the doubt in being able to express ourselves as intelligible human beings, and it is when we fail that we should be instructed to consider other modes of thinking appropriate for the course of discussion.”

I think it’s time for Ms. Carlson to consider other modes of thinking appropriate for the course of discussion, though I’m not sure what these might be. And I’m not sure whether other modes of thinking will serve her purpose, since she seems to have trouble with ordinary thinking.

I read her September 25 column,”Expressing yourself as an intelligible human.”

Then I read it again, slogging through vague and inflated verbiage, limp platitudes and murky metaphors in search of what I could only hope was her point.

Apparently, she has discovered that there are folks at Iowa State who think we’re all entitled to their opinions.

If we beg to differ, they interrupt us, patronize us and ridicule us — or shout us down and insult us. This makes conversation difficult.

Sad to say, sometimes the guilty party is a professor, who should know better. In fact, all of us at ISU should know better. A university is supposed to be a forum for civil and rational debate.

Ms. Carlson makes a plea for us all to think critically, express our ideas bravely but courteously and take responsibility for what we say. And above all, learn to listen to others. If more people did these things, the world would be a nicer place.

At least, that’s what I think she meant. But I’m not sure, for this column on “Expressing yourself as an intelligible human” was itself hardly intelligible.

What does it mean when we are told, “Numerous are the times when I have attempted to converse with those who have never experienced or at the bare minimum endeavored augmentation in their manner of thinking?”

Whatever it was supposed to mean, it tells me that the author was determined to sacrifice clarity to a style both pretentious and incoherent. She proclaims that “… we have churned out an infinite supply of monkey suits from this pot of follow-the-leader stew where the broth consists of clones and the rational beings are the infinitesimal quantity of peas.”

The purpose of a metaphor is to transmit an idea by means of imagery — not to impress us with the writer’s cleverness. This picture of peas and monkey suits swimming in clone broth did neither: It only threw me for a loop and put me off my lunch.

She complains of “the bombardment of profundities amiss at this university.” Maybe she means stuff like this: “Communication is what ties us all together. If communication were only more of an emphasis, then relating to people would be a more rewarding, entertaining and even pleasurable quest.”

There’s a double-shotted broadside of profundities if ever I heard one. It’s ironic that the author of this guff wants to tell the rest of us how to communicate.

And it’s alarming that a senior in journalism and international studies knows her trade no better than this.

If this is how she expounds a straightforward issue like effective communication, how is she going to explain the Balkans?

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Margret Englesson

Senior

History