Pledge to Footnotes

I, Adam Frieberg, do solemnly swear to never again disparage the use of footnotes. While I reserve the right to critique those who use copious amounts of footnotes, I hereby recognize that footnotes have their purposes. My actions earlier in Senior Seminar of labeling the students who read footnotes as overachievers was completely uncalled for and for that I am truly sorry. The Almighty must have concurred because the reading assignment tonight for Dr. Frye’s Major British Writers class was to read “The Knight’s Tale” in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in MIDDLE ENGLISH! I humbly recognize that footnotes can be my friend and that in this case having three or four footnotes per line of prose is indeed called for, in order to adequately convey whatever the hell the author was trying to say. I now must apologize for previously using the word ‘hell’ because Microsoft Word definitely just flagged it with a green squiggle line. Oh how I long for easy ways to read footnotes, much like the ever-increasing simplicity of composing copious amounts of college prose using the computer. On this night, on this late hour, I assert that footnotes are not foes and should be given full status as valid stylistic devices.