User:Polla ta deina

About Polla ta deina
I have always held Polla ta deina, the opening words of the first chorus in Sophocles’ Antigone, to mean ‘There are many wondrous, amazing, extraordinary things’, which interpretation explains my user name. Is not Wikipedia chock-a-block full of the most wondrous, amazing, extraordinary things?

Now that you know about my name, let me introduce myself, and tell you the whys and wherefores of my molting into a Wikipedian.

I used to be a college professor. While I still was one, I often regretted the huge gap between academia and John & Jane Doe. But popularizing science and scholarship is not highly valued by the academic powers that be; in fact, they are liable to use popularization as the direct object of perpetrate. But now that I am retired, I no longer have to participate in the publish-or-perish rat race. I can and will indulge myself. And what better way to do it than by contributing to Wikipedia?

I have a second reason. The culture of the Low Countries deserves to be better known than it is, within the Low Countries itself as well as outside them. I hope to make it better known, by contributing or improving articles on our culture bearers and cultural facts, to the Dutch and the English Wikipedias.

If all this sounds idealistic and high-falutin’, I’d better take myself down a peg or two in your estimation. I am doing this for the fun of it. I intend to write but little about my former profession. I’d feel guilty doing that without making sure that what I wrote was up-to-date, and being up-to-date would again require joining the rat race I am so glad to be out of. I might write about some pretty timeless and non-controversial stuff, but cutting-edge research? Count me out, I am retired. I’ll write about subjects I fancy, in particular about classical music, which friends and acquaintances tell me I am reasonably knowledgeable about. But I will attend to any subject that I think I can contribute to, not as a professor, but as an honnête homme.

Let me conclude with a few remarks on my sometimes quirky ideas about writing in general as well as for Wikipedia in particular. First, I am a fierce proponent of the descriptivist persuasion. Whenever a prescription is contradicted by the actual practice of native speakers, I go with the native speakers and the prescription goes into my usage dustbin. Second, I dislike the academic style. (I am on record as opposing it even in academia—sorry I can't give the reference here, as that would give away my identity.) I am all for writing natural and therefore often somewhat informal English, because that is the easiest to understand. Third, I love all words, provided they are used accurately, with their denotations and connotations just so. I cheerfully admit this contradicts my second point, but as a former lexicographer I am willing to pay the price of this contradiction for the riches a huge vocabulary has and yields. Fourth, I think a bit of humour does wonders for any text. Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Lauda Sion would definitely be poorer without the dogs that are denied the Body of Christ, and so would Shakespeare’s Macbeth without the devil-porter’s rantings. Wikipedia texts don’t come more serious than Lauda Sion or Macbeth; if they can afford to be funny sometimes, so can Wikipedia. And I believe it should. Polla ta deina (talk) 10:42, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

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