Cringe

 My students in intro to lit thought Elvira Sastre was "cringe." I didn't even prime them (very much to think that).  These are young people who aren't studying literature as their major, but they could see it was superficial, cliché, facile, "like something my grandmother would post on Facebook."  I'm trying to engage with them; they liked a rapper I showed them, but not the more literary but actually much worse poet.  

Things people don't like about language

 People tend to use language as a surrogate for other issues, but sometimes language is the actual issue (or appears to be at least.) I thought of writing a post facetiously against language itself. After all, without language we wouldn't have insulting words at all!  Instead, a brief list of what people (some people) don't like. Not everyone will dislike everything here, but this is what I hear the most frequently in recent days.  

Change in general. People aren't happy about unfamiliar language, or about things changing. There would be a bias in favor of whatever they perceive to be the stasis, or what they are used to.  

Neologisms and acronyms / initialisms. This could come under the category of change, as well. STEMM, instead of STEM. DEIB. Generally, they are seen to be bureaucratic or ugly.  

Euphemisms can be disliked. This might come under the category of change, as well. There is a shift from homeless to unhoused. Same meaning, but a shift to soften or euphemize the term. 

Language that is cowardly or mealy-mouthed, used out of fear of calling offense, or in order to strike an attitude. A kind of performative use of language designed to mark the speaker as part of the right side of history.   

Language that is obfuscatory or blatantly dishonest, like "right-to-work" for anti-union laws. Orwellian language that makes us call things the opposite of what they are.   

Some don't like terminology that seems verbose or fussy, using more words that necessary, or making fine distinctions where none are needed. The objection here is to the attitude behind the speech, the kind of person who would use language that way.  

People (some people) don't like concept creep, where a term takes on new meanings. Violence (for things not literally violent), trauma (for things milder than older ideas of trauma. White supremacy (for just about anything, no longer tied to KKK ideas.)  Triggered. 

People don't like trivial or patently absurd objections to words, like the supposedly dehumanized phrase "the French," or recent questioning of the word "field" as tied to slavery. 

People don't like the obsessive focus on language itself, the idea that a linguistic hygiene will resolve real issues. On the other hand, people do like to obsessively focus on language and force others to use it how they like it, or curtail certain usages that seem unobjectionable. You can't say the debate is trivial because it is merely linguistic. After all, we are symbolic creatures.  

That's only a partial list. There's also jargon, minor grammatical peeves, and other categories I'm sure I'm missing. 

Pronunciation

 I saw a post on twitter where a journalist from Iran corrected an American athlete's pronunciation of Iran. It's not "I ran" but "ee-rahn." Well, yes and no. In English we say "Spain" and not "España." We say "Muh-drid" and not "mah-dreed."   

Ammons volte-face

 I never was big on Ammons, but he is actually pretty great.  Maybe I made the mistake of trying to read a book called Garbage [a long poem] which I found long-winded and prosaic, almost unreadable. What I like about a few poems ("And I said I am Ezra") I couldn't find in too many other poems. Also, I was committed to poetics of non-earnestness and quite picky or dogmatic about certain of my preferences. Something in my brain dislodged, my blockage toward him, and now I actively like him. This is not to day I prefer him to Ashbery, but I would not like him better if he were more like Ashbery. In other words, the aspects I like of him are unique to his achievement. I would see him all the time in the "Temple of Zeus" in Cornell University (a little coffee shop in one of the buildings, with white plaster reproductions of Greek statues) but of course I never approached him! 

Understanding a poet is understanding why even seemingly unattractive aspects are part of the whole that makes everything else work. So with Ammon's shagginess and occasional abstraction / obviousness.  

dreams

 I had become close friends somehow with a British prince. (?) I was telling him about seeing my friends from High School again. One, a woman, has cancer, and I was glad that I could see her, I told the prince. I was explaining how I had had a crush on her when we were young, but that now I loved her only as a friend. Norbie, my brother-in-law was also in the dream (also in poor health in real life). Perhaps John W. was there too, at least in the background.   

Dream of Footrace

 I was discovered to be a relatively fast sprinter, since I won a race in 7.4 seconds, with very little effort. Supposedly it was a 10 meter dash (that wouldn't be fast, but that was what it was in the dream context). I think I was young in this dream (maybe 16), or else I was middle-aged and discovered that I could still run.  When I woke up but still in a daze I sincerely believed myself to be a swift runner for a few minutes. 

***

There was some kind of armed conflict between a group of vigilantes and a criminal gang. (I wasn't in this dream, but watching it as in movie.) The gang was going to retaliate against the vigilantes, and the latter were in a room with guns drawn, all pointing to the door through which the gang members would presumably come in.  It was absurd, since it was not clear how soon the gang would discover the location of the vigilantes. You couldn't just stand there for days staring at the door, thought.  

Kafka

 A fame quote by Kafka is all over the internet.  "Paths are made by walking." It is a Machado poem.  How it got attributed to Kafka (in German too!) is anyone's guess.