Linguist, lexicographer, radio host, public speaker

Harvard was the zone of ferocious competition and status anxiety

“Right in there, I got on an elevator one day with a dean. I’d had crabs a few months before, and the only way to get rid of them is with this stuff called Pyrinate A-200. Which stinks. And on this elevator was the unmistakable odor of Pyrinate A-200. So I said to the dean, ‘You have my sympathy. It’s no fun. But if you want a better method, you should shave one half of your pubic hair, light the other half on fire, and get them with an icepick when they come running out…’”

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Grant Barrett