Professor Tut-Tut
199 words. Letter to the editor.
Usage: I hope it is obvious to publishers that this column only makes sense as a follow-up to a very specific column—one written by Mr. Rubel Shelly on the subject of Dolly Parton. You are not likely to publish Mr. Shelly’s column from December of 2020, so my column, as written, would also not make sense in your publication. Of course, if you publish random humor and it doesn’t matter if a letter refers to something you haven’t actually run in your publication, you could just plop it in there. I include it because it contains material you could easily repurpose in your own writing, especially the concept of a “Professor Tut-Tut” as an archetypical columnist. It’s also a decent example of how to hang a letter on a dubious interpretation of source material, introduce the topic, score a couple of jokes, and get out, all within the word limit of the publication.
(Submitted with no title)
The recent column by Rubel Shelly should have had a trigger warning!
Based on past columns, I thought of him as the resident “Professor Tut-Tut,” which is my generic label for the guy who is always called on to write columns that could have the headline “Tut-Tut: [Insert Some Current Issue].”
Sometimes those guys mix it up and utter a more vehement “tsk-tsk,” but it’s usually kept to a civilized tut-tut.
Mr. Shelly’s status as a former college president, theologian and philosopher (can’t believe he gave up that last gig) contributes to the assumption that when he takes up his pen, a tut-tut will flow forth.
Well, color me shocked and delighted by his polite slavering over Dolly Parton’s, as he puts it, “well, you know” and later “her, uh, anatomy.”
Whooee! Not since reading Jimmy Carter’s Playboy confessional about lust in his heart have I had to reach for the smelling salts while reading the words of someone I thought was “just” a Sunday school tut-tutter.
I have revised my opinion and will no longer think of Mr. Shelly as Professor Tut-Tut. And I agree about Dolly being admirable, for all the reasons he stated.
All. The. Reasons.
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This work appeared in The Anniston Star on December 11, 2020.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.