All aboard the non sequitur bus!

My wife was managing two high-profile meetings today and spent a good deal of time last week preparing for exigencies. Double check the room reservation. Allow extra time in the morning. Plan for backup tech support. Check to see how long the laptop can go before the screensaver locks out a critical user and requires re-authentication. And so on.

Meanwhile, my students are designing and building model bridges. As part of this month-long project, they test individual components under load and are told that their final design should include a factor of safety of 2.0. I.e. the design should support twice as much weight as we expect the bridge to actually experience.

If I were Malcolm Gladwell, I would write a book called “Overbuilt,” which would be about the many advantages of…not worst-case-scenario planning, exactly, but bad-case-scenario planning. It would be about the virtues of paranoia. The world throws low-probability events at us all the time: not only is the IT guy sick, but the projector has a burnt-out bulb and the post-it note that had our room reservation on it came unstuck from the monitor and fell to the floor, where it was missed because yada yada.

Planning for such things isn’t just prudent. It’s a shared characteristic of the punctual, the effective, the reliable in every domain. Even in the realm of pure idea, we expect critical thinkers to consider objections to their claims, to anticipate counterarguments, and to systematically eliminate, minimize, or otherwise contain those oppositions.

Our imaginations are rarely as creative as Murphy’s forces. The second law of thermodynamics wants you to fail. To ensure that your project is successful, you need a plan that will work when the shit comes down. And if it doesn’t come down today, it probably will tomorrow.

Thus, one of my favorite mottos: Semper paratus. Always ready.

“I always wanted an education.” This suggests the perspective of a consumer. Education is something coveted, something we get. — As if we could go down to the education store and pick one up for the price of tuition (and get what we paid for).

What if we spoke about schools as workshops rather than stores — places where students go to construct or make an education? Or if we saw a teacher as a mechanic rather than Santa Claus — someone whose job it is to help you maintain or repair ideas, rather than give them to you?

In Year 1 that useless letter “c” would be dropped to be replased by either “k” or “s,” and likewise “x” would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which “c” would be retained would be the “ch” formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might well reform “w” spelling, so that “which” and “one” would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish “y” replasing it with “i,” and Iear 4 might fiks the “g-j” anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear, with Iear 5 doing awai with useles double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Ier 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov the ridandant letez “c,” “y,” amd “x” — bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez — tu riplais “ch,” “sh,” and “th” rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xreawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. Haweve, sins xe Wely, the Airiy, and xe Skots du not spik Ingliy, xei wud hev to hev a speling siutd tu xer oun lengwij. Xei kud, haweve, orlweiz lern Ingliy as a sekond lengwik et skuul.

Iorz feixfuli,
M.J. Yilz

Shields MJ (1980) “Iorz Feixfuli”, reprinted in Espy WR (1980) Another Almanac of Words at Play. Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., New York, p. 80.

Students are oysters. Education is sand.