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How to Tell if Your Friend is an English Major (or Spends Too Much Time Around One)

Majoring in English is a serious thing. If you suspect your friend may be majoring in English, or spending too much time around an English major, here are some early warning signs to look out for for which to look out:

1. Whenever you play scrabble, they get absurdly competitive.
2. They pick up the school newspaper and go through it with a red pen.
3. You type ‘affect’ instead of ‘effect’ in your group project and they insist on reprinting the whole page.
4. Sometimes they stop to reword a sentence so that their grammar is correct.
5. They check out six books from the library at one time, and when you ask if it’s for an essay, they answer, “No.”
6. You invite them to a party in November and they say, “Sorry, I have to work on my novel.”
7. They thought the person who puts up the marquee at the theater was an idiot when The Pursuit of Happyness came out, and you had to spend twenty minutes trying to explain to them why it was spelled that way. They still said it was wrong.
8. Instead of reading a ten page article for their paper, they read a three-hundred page book.
9. They have multiple sets of the complete works of Jane Austen on their bookshelf and insist that they need them both.
10. As soon as they open up Microsoft Word, they start setting up MLA format.
11. Every time you go to the store together, they end up in the school supplies aisle looking at journals.
12. When you complain that you shouldn’t have to read Shakespeare and his “old English”, they lecture you on the difference between old, middle, and modern English—and then start pulling out copies of Beowulf and Chaucer.
13. They turn in a six page essay instead of a two page essay because they couldn’t finish their thought in just two pages.
14. While at Barnes and Noble, they grab a classic book from a shelf in excitement and tell you, “This is my favorite brand of paperbacks! The paper is so soft!”
15. They inform you that there are more than seven circles of hell on a regular basis.

This post was in no way typed with twelve point doubled spaced Times New Roman font.

Photo Credit: Algiamil at Stock Xchng.