From the Tom Woods Letter:

I know there are more important things in the world, but sometimes you get a bee in your bonnet and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Mine is an email I received from Harvard this weekend.

In particular, it was an invitation for me to visit Adams House, my upperclass house, after years of renovations. Palestine: A Four Thou... Masalha, Nur Best Price: $12.99 Buy New $13.50 (as of 09:36 UTC - Details)

A little background: before Harvard made the dumb decision to assign students randomly to the various upperclass houses, you used to be able to submit your preferences. The result was that students sorted themselves according to their interests and personalities: Kirkland House was for the jocks, Eliot House for the snobs, and Adams House for, wait for it…

…the artsy people.

You know, just like ol’ Woods here!

Never in a million years would I have chosen Adams House, but that’s where I was assigned, oddly enough in one of the last years students were allowed to submit their preferences.

“Poetic justice!” proclaimed my leftist friend in my freshman dorm.

I came to make my peace with Adams House, though, and I even became friendly with Professor Robert Kiely, who was the “house master” (a faculty member who lived in and lightly oversaw the administration of an upperclass house).

Well, in this weekend’s email, beneath the signatures of the new house masters was the ugly title “faculty dean,” followed by “formerly house master.”

And I thought: don’t tell me. They decided “house master” sounded too much like it involved slavery.

Bingo.

I remember having thought the title “house master” was pretty neat, actually.

Apparently the change was made back in 2016 because, according to the Harvard Crimson, some house leaders “noted that the term ‘master’ could be associated with slavery.”

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith admitted at the time that there was no connection between the term and slavery (though of course anyone with an IQ above 70 already knew that): “I have not been shown any direct connection between the term House Master and the institution of slavery.”

He likewise acknowledged that alumni were likely to continue to use the older term and insisted that “they should have no qualms in doing so. The term House Master is and will remain a part of the College’s long and proud history.”

These are the pretzels you have to twist yourself into while simultaneously trying on the one hand to appease crazy people and emotional hypochondriacs, while on the other hand maintaining at least a tenuous connection to reality.

I for one think the changes did not go far enough. At the Origins of Poli... Buccellati, Giorgio Best Price: $60.60 Buy New $39.99 (as of 08:51 UTC - Details)

Perhaps the college should no longer use the term “fork” to refer to a utensil. Such terminology could remind people of “forks in the road,” which could in turn trigger them with reminders of difficult decisions.

I propose “scoop buddy” as a suitably anodyne replacement.

Tables, too, might trigger our delicate flowers, perhaps reminding them of “turning the tables,” a phrase tied to conflict or betrayal, or medieval torture devices like the rack, which were vaguely table-like.

Instead, I propose “flat gathering surface.”

Can we devise enough neologisms to satisfy the perpetually aggrieved?

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