WESTWOOD—Sources revealed this morning that English 142 Professor Michael Prinz intends to increase both the frequency and duration of his pauses during tomorrow’s lecture. According to multiple accounts, the 57-year-old expert in 18th century Neoclassical poetry has repeatedly fallen behind on his own syllabus, thereby forcing himself to find increasingly more creative ways of wasting time. “Jokes are fine. Making people read long, drawn-out passages is great too, but it’s those dramatic pauses that really get them,” said Mr. Prinz in an interview with the Enabler. “For this lecture in particular, however, I’m thinking about using a lot of filler words as well, phrases such as ‘and what not’ or ‘you know,’ in place of actual content. I will likely supplement these with pointless transitions, maybe string together three or four of them in a row—‘by that token… that is to say, to that effect…,’ you know, something in that vein.” While many are well-aware of his shortcomings by now, Mr. Prinz is not entirely immune to criticism. When put on the spot by his students, the professor says that he tries to avoid awkward silences by going off on weird tangents. “Sometimes I’ll have to resort to bullshitting an entire lecture, talking about victorian sexuality in a class that’s really supposed to be about early Romanticism,” said the PhD, adding, “Really, at this point they should probably stop coming to my lectures entirely.”
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