if a thing like this is worth doing at all, it's worth doing right

Our derivations were getting nasty -- but why? I was puzzled, frustrated. Was there no communication in this class? Had we deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts?

Because my education was true. I was certain of that. And it was extremely important, I felt, for the meaning of our examples to be made absolutely clear. We had actually seen sitting there in the Showdown -- for many hours -- drinking Shiner Bock by the pitcher with water chasers. And when the call came, we were ready.

The dwarf approached our table cautiously, as I recall, and when he handed me pink cellphone I said nothing, merely listened. And then I hung up, turning my face to my classmates. "That was headquarters," I said. "They want me to go to Linguistics at once, and make contact with a German semanticist named Schwarz. He'll have all the details. All I have to do is register for the class and he'll raise quantifiers."

My classmates said nothing for a moment, then they suddenly came alive in their chairs. "God hell!" they exclaimed. "I think I see the pattern. This one sounds like real trouble! They tucked their t-shirts into their boot cut jeans and called for another drink. "You're going to need plenty of linguistic advice before this thing is over," they said. "And my first advice to you is that you should check out a very fast book with no cover and get the hell out of Austin for at least 48 hours." They shook their heads sadly. "That blows my weekend, because naturally we have to go with you -- and we'll have to arm ourselves."

"Why not?" I said. "If a thing like this is worth doing at all, it's worth doing right. We'll need some decent equipment and plenty of cash on the line -- if only for books and a a super-sensitive tape recorder, for the sake of a permanent record."

"What kind of study is this?" they asked.

"The Fall 2005," I said. "It's the next off-the-track semester for linguists and philosophers in the history of institutionalized education -- a fanatic journey in honor of some stuck-up MIT persona named Chomsky, who owns the syntactic Minimalism in the heart of downtown Linguistics . . . at least that's what the literature says; my man in Boston just read it to me."

"Well," they said. "as your classmates we advise you to buy a Minimalist textbook. How else can you cover a thing like this righteously?"

"No way," I said. "Where can we get hold of a Lexicalist Functional Grammar text?"

"What's that?"

"A fantastic theory," I said. "The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing two hundred brake-horsepower at hour hundred revolutions per minute on a lexical frame with two styrofoam brackets and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds."

"That sounds about right for this gig," they said.

"It is," I assured them. "The fucker's not much for exceptions, but it's pure hell on grammaticality. It'll outrun the GB until takeoff."

"Takeoff?" they said. "Can we handle that much torque?"

"Absolutely," I said. "I'll call Boston for some cash."