tools of the trade

Way back in the days of my linguist training in Monterey, California, there was a student who bordered on being a wee bit off (actually, there were tons of students that were totally off): a simple guy who liked to sweep the parking lots while wearing a dust mask, picking up rocks while he walked and putting them in his pocket, and generally enhancing his viewed strangeness whenever possible. Another student, Keith, dubbed him “the wedge” because Keith claimed that he was the simplest instrument known to man. I’ve learned that a wedge isn’t really an instrument but a variant on a simple machine – a small detail that neither makes the moniker any less creative, nor makes me laugh any less even now.

Driven along by third-grade homework (or some worksheet that actually taught nothing but could have but was merely sent home as means of proving there was busy work to intrude on a kid’s kicking back time….but I digress.) that I was helping out with last night, I’ve learned that a wedge is actually a variation on the simple machines. Now, depending on who is putting forth the research, there are either four or six simple machines - I’m going with the four: inclined plane, pulley, wheel and axle, and a lever. I’m pretty strict in my simple machine upbringing; call me a machine conservative, so I agree that the screw and wedge are merely variations on the inclined plane. In fact, a knife is a variation on an inclined plane and since the inclined plane is a simple machine, and a knife is a variation (two or more simple machines put together), then a knife is by induction (deduction?) a machine, right? Or a tool? Or what? Christ. That’s just the beginning, there’s so much more. If a machine (or simple machine) is any device that transmits or modifies energy, and the mechanical advantage of a simple machine is the ratio between the force it exerts on the load and the input force applied, is a hammer or screwdriver a machine or a tool, or both? What you’re probably saying to yourself at this point is this; “If a tool or device is a piece of equipment which typically provides a mechanical advantage in accomplishing a physical task; and if the most basic tools are simples machines (for example, a crowbar being a lever), then obviously they must be machines.” I couldn’t agree more. Actually, I could agree more if my combination of logic and toolery were better and I weren’t such a cooky, door-locking, sports score reading, crossword puzzling doing, kind of man. You can’t have it all.

THAT is what the homework could have involved…some good old fashion learning and thinking. Instead it was a stupid Highlights® cartoon page of crap that had kids drawing pictures of things without any thought whatsoever about what it means or how it all works. If you must know, I think elementary school homework, at nearly every level, is shite. Sorry.