Each quote will be followed by my discussion on the quote. I might suggest that you don't read all of the quotes in 1 day... too much mercer can result in an overload of your system... and by system, I mean your digestive system... you've been warned!

Mercer Quotes

9/14/2004



“Intertwine, Inter-relate and Interconnect”

    * This was the quote that inspired me to write it down. I just couldn’t stand the idea of a future without something like this being recorded! A world where people can say stuff like that and NOT have it recorded is a world I do not want to be a part of. This quote is also a great example of his ability to dwell on a word in a unique manner, its quite interesting.



“Those issues that are relevant, pertinent or important”

    * Those teachers that are redundant, inessential, inordinate, long-winded, periphrastic or repetitious…



9/20/2004



“Political relum”

    * Ian made me right this one down, he loves the way mercer says the word “realm”. He does the same thing with the word “film” and you should see how he pronounces “compromise”



9/21/2004



“The breath of depth in your work in your writing”

    * Not only is this a flagrant disregard to grammatical structure, but its something that depicts quite accurately, how mercer tries to sound so mystic… or basically just hazy and incomprehensible.



“Internal psychological responses to our observable external actions”

    * I struggled to get this one on paper before it escaped my mind. Something this complex is hard to keep in my head. Even harder, would be if I were to attempt to explain how my politics teacher came about saying a phrase like this.



“Martha Stewarts business is cosmetics”

          o … wait for it….wait for it….. NO ITS NOT!!



9/22/2004



“synthesize your own conclusions”

          o Often mercer uses the word “synthesize” in completely incorrect contexts. Once, I actually caught him in a discussion using it incorrectly and I asked him what he meant by it, and he said “look it up!” but I told him I knew exactly what the word meant, I even defined it for him right then and there but his only response to that was “there’s a dictionary at the back”.. which by the way there isn’t.



“May be contrasted to the contrary”

          o Well here it is folks, my all-time favorite mercer quote. It may not be the funniest, or the most confusing. But it is by far, a perfect depiction of mercerness to its fullest. If you were to sum up mercer in one quote, that would be it.



9/23/2004



“tomorrows happy day”

          o … what can I say?



“just a little cow path from Ottawa to Kingston, y’know?”

          o I like how in this one, I managed to throw in the “y’know” part he adds to the end of 50% of his sentences. You probably won’t notice he does that until you start listening for it. I’m actually somewhat frightened that I have noticed it… makes me wonder if I’ve gone a little too far in my research of mercers madness? But hey, I have to spend 75 minutes with the guy every day for 18 weeks, if I don’t spend my time looking for the humor in things, I’ll go mad. Which is exactly what he wants!



10/04/2004



“Those who are worthy, or lacksidasicle”

    * This was said as we were entering the class. I think he was going on about how nobody was ready for class, even though the final bell hadn’t even rang yet. I managed to catch him saying this and couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “lachsidasicle” isn’t even a word. I believe what he thought he was saying was the word “lackadaisical” which only slightly fits into his little pre-lesson lecture.



10/06/2004



“The nature of nature”

    * The struggle to understand what this man is talking about is a never ending battle. Here you see him saying what in many cases, could be considered a poetic and meaningful phrase… in this case he stumbled upon it randomly when he was trying to teach an informative lesson.



10/07/2004



“…contractual agreement among the sphere”

    * This is one of my favorite quotes because it so well depicts Mercer and his manner of speaking. This one raises questions like: why use the word sphere? If sphere refers to the globe, when what kind of contract is signed amongst the entire globe? And what the heck is that hanging out of his mouth?



“Italies are now beginning to feel they’re Italian.”

    * No, its not a typo… he literally said that italies are feeling Italian. If you go further into this, you realize that even if he had said Italians, wouldn’t they already feel Italian if they are being called Italian?



“Everything had to be written by candle”

    * A straight up example of mercers obliviousness taken from one of his endless lectures of the printing press.



10/13/2004



“…observations, speculations, and observations”

    * Mercer has this increasable method of talking where he manages to dwell on a certain word and linger on for what is usually 5-10 minutes repeating synonyms over and over. Its makes listening somewhat of a chore… or a burden, assignment, devoir, duty, effort, errand, grind, job, routine, scutwork, stint, trial, tribulation, workout.



10/19/2004



“Super excellent point”



    * He says to Fraser after Fraser gave him one of his patented I-know-so-much-yet-so-little questions that mercer loves so much. I even saw Ian laugh on this one, which is a sign that Ian was cracking!



10/22/2004



“We’re going to look at a bit of that historic 1917 moment in video form.”

    * To the moment, I don’t think we’ve seen a video on WWI… although who’s to say that WWI was even the moment he was referring to? I think the thing here, is that he made such a big point of it being a video. His constant astonishment with the “digital age” and everything electronic is something few of us can get over.



“Lennon died of a stroke in the brain”

    * Unlike all those people who died of a stroke in the left knee… Oh, and just so you know, he wasn’t talking about John Lennon. No, John is a little too modern for Mercer. Any musician after the famous rapper Bob Dylan is far too modern for his comprehension.



“Can’t just think about it abstractly”

    * The word abstract is most likely his favorite. He fits it into as many sentences as possible. Often I get reminded of grade 10 when in career studies he walked up to me at my desk and told me that I was very “abstract” then he proceeded to tap his forehead while staring at my blankly until I walked away.



11/10/2004



“When you live in the in the information high-tech digital age”

    * I found this quote so funny, that I actually burst out laughing, pointing right at mercer. When I managed to get enough breath to look back up to me, he, for a split second, had a smirk on his face. That notion feeds my theory that he is secretly just pretending to be the intolerable man he is as a social experiment to see if they could drive me crazy! Well I’ll show him I will!