Can Someone Translate?

Good gawd, is it just me, or is this UH engineering prof's prose turgid beyond belief?

Here's one of my favorite lines:

Political correctness of the most flaccid variety reigns supreme.

Huh? What does that mean? What precisely is a flaccid variety of political correctness? And how do flaccid things reign supreme? And what does any of it have to do with the rest of the paragraph?

Here's another good one:

For example, there are precious few universities that can make the claim that their income from intellectual property (IP in the lingo) can actually rationalize the salaries of the staffs and the unavoidable lawyers purported to guard the IP. In the name of safeguarding the state's interests, UH has elevated this to an almost nonreproducible onerous level.

ALMOST NONREPRODUCIBLE ONEROUS LEVEL. Say it ten times fast. Go ahead. For even more fun, imagine President Bush doing the same.

And finally:

To paraphrase, though, William Allen White's famous aphorism about newspapers, a community gets the university it deserves.

Yes, that, does, seem, to, be, the, case.

[Posted at 23:18 CST on 10/07/02] [Link]