The New 'F' word

Research jargon is driving me up the wall! No matter how much I try, I can't escape pompous phrases like 'the emic/etic insights' which in normal parlance would be 'the insider/outsider perspectives'.

My misery is such that academic speak follows me wherever I go. Imagine me looking forward to relaxing after a research seminar, only to have my colleagues ram down my throat more of these distressing words!

It is so bad that even when we go out for a drink, we talk about journal publishers and conference presentations. (I am now certain I am living a second life, where I am being punished for some very serious crime in my past. Otherwise, how would you explain my being asked for my ontological stance over a glass of wine?)

The word I now abhor above all others, is this 'F' word!

It also ends with a 'K' and can be used to liberally punctuate sentences, especially by anyone in short supply of vocabulary.

When I am nervous, (this being that time around which all eyes turn on me, and their owners expect to hear something scholarly from me), I swallow hard and my lips contort as I try to enunciate this big words.

FRAMEWORK! That is the F word that stumbles out of my mouth. I sound something like: 'I am looking for a framework, to frame work my framework.

'What the framework!' Is what I should be saying instead.

Or maybe, 'I am so frameworked!' When I remember that I have to apply for more Research funding.

The best would be to say 'Framework off!' when a Conference chair writes to remind me that my paper is due. These Conference chairs really get on my nerves because they send me a myriad emails reminding me that since my abstract was accepted many full moons ago, then it follows that I have to hand in my paper on  such and such a date.

You are now wondering why I sent in my abstract to a conference in the first place, or why I scoured the internet for a PhD scholarship.

All I can tell you is: 'go framework yourself!'



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