Philip Chalk’s Opinion Journal piece, “Professors of Piffle,” takes aim at contemporary scholarship in the humanities:

The scholarly periodical called Violence Against Women promises a righteous sense of mission, and it does not disappoint. It features ‘Boys Against Girls: The Structural and Interpersonal Dimensions of Violent Patriarchal Culture in the Lives of Young Men.’ And ‘Control and the Dalkon Shield,’ which begins with this grabber: ‘This article differs from other accounts of the Dalkon Shield by establishing a historicized analysis, which deconstructs discourses surrounding it and their effects.’

Meanwhile, the University of Texas’ Journal of the History of Sexuality offers ‘Recording the Unspeakable: Masturbation in the Diary of William Drummond, 1657-1659,’ a trenchant study of a Scotsman with more than time on his hands.

As a humanities scholar myself, I offer (by way of rejoinder to Mr. Chalk), this brief observation: “Philip” spelled backwards is “pilihp,” a rough phonetic approximation, spoken aloud, of “pile-up” — which you’ll all recognize as the compound term frequently used to describe multi-car accidents. That is, twisted metal. Or mettle.

And what is twisted mettle? a subversion of bravery, fortitude, and pluck.

I believe I’ve made my point, Mr. Chalk, don’t you? You twisted pluck, you…

[“…what’s that? Y’mean, it would connote the exact opposite — because of the reverse order of the name and all? Oh. Okay. Well…never mind, then…”]

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