From the Archives: Donate to the Linguist List Fund Drive!!
An enormous thank you again to all those who have contributed to this year’s Linguist List Fund Drive! Due to your generous support, Stanford currently is in second place position in the University Challenge and is close to achieving first place both in terms of number of contributors and in terms of amount contributed.
For those who haven’t yet contributed, here’s some encouragement: an (abridged) appeal (or is it an exhortation?) from Eric Acton (Ph.D. ’14), sent to department members ten years ago!
Subject: Donate to the Linguist List Fund Drive!! -OR- To dust you shall return
Date: March 24, 2011
Dear Teammates,
Every year, the Linguist List holds a fund drive to support its operations, and the 2011 Linguist List Fund Drive is in full swing.
Part of the annual fund drive is the Grad School Challenge [renamed the "University Challenge" - the Editors], which awards the school whose affiliates contribute the most to the drive. Last year, we came in second to the University of Washington. Right now, we're in sixth place overall, and Cornell is nipping at our heels. Translation: It's game time. Translation: Stanford needs to represent. Translation: Go hard or go home. Translation: We need to make some donations right about now.
Here's why you should donate, and soon:
“…”
At least it's a fund drive and not a Pledge drive. (Oh, yes, there is a difference. The last Pledge drive I was a part of was run by my bourgeois but well-intentioned Aunt Gertrude, who insisted that society's greatest ill was unpolished furniture. For Aunt Gertrude, heaven was being able to see one's reflection in a tabletop. Of course, after the shame of being labeled a "regular ninny" for collecting a few cans of Endust for the drive, I had a hard time looking at my own reflection in the mirror, much less a dining surface. "A fine job you've done, young man! I suppose you thought this pedestrian polish would serve as a respectable substitute? I might have known. Well, you can forget about those Necco Wafers I promised you." (Also, while we're on the subject of Pledge, if it ever comes up, I don't want lemon in my water."))
“…”
So donate now! If we work together, I'm sure we'll have no trouble polishing off the competition. Here's the link: [https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/].
Gotta go. It's Spring Cleaning at Aunt Gertrude's, and if I finish burnishing the silver by supper (4:30), then I get a nickel or a Werther's--my choice.*
E "I ain't no Sigma Chi, but I know Pledging like a frat boy" A
*I think I'll opt for the nickel. Aunt Gertrude hangs on to things for a while, so when she says "Werther's Original", I think she really means Werther's Original.