In article , "Elise"
dragon and thistle at snet dot net wrote:

Jumping up and waving hand Algebra!!! Cut Algebra!!!!! Yeah! When
was
the last time you figured out what "x" was in real life! ;

Hugs,

CatNipped ----- whose gradepoint average was brought down by the
dreaded
math

I must admit to figuring out what "x" is equal to on a fairly regular
basis.
Of course I loved Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus in school and hated
picking apart various well-told stories to find the deeper meanings
within.

A pet peeve that DH and I were recently discussing: Why can't a story
just
be enjoyed as a story? The only one who truly knows the deeper meaning,
if
any, is the author. In the case of most classes in English Literature,
most
of those authors were long since deceased. Perhaps the teachers held
regularly scheduled séances?


Admittedly computer science rather than literature, but I still remember
a brief and dubious sampling of one graduate program. I was taking a
course in [of interest to CS people only] discrete mathematical
structures, and the lecture was on applications of finite state automata.

The professor happened to pull an example from a very familiar industry
document, a standard method of measuring network performance. He showed
a page, and said "the description here can be rewritten in our terms to
mean AAA".

I raised my hand. "Professor, do you think that BBB might be an
alternate interpetation?"

"Nonsense. This is clear."

A few minutes later, I inquired again, "could it be that the thought was
BBB?"

"No".

I couldn't stand it any longer. "Sir, I really think you should conside
the BBB interpretation."

He whirled around and demanded "why on earth do you think a silly thing
like that was in the committee's mind?"

"Because that's not what I meant when I drafted that section. You might
want to look at the list of coauthors."

It was clear he was tenured, as he changed the subject with barely a
blink.