Prairie Home Companion pointed to some English Major humor at its Tumblr site. On the way to finding it, I also found this—

Why English majors should probably never have to do jury duty. #joke #cartoon pic.twitter.com/BTD7z9X0ag

— Grammarly (@Grammarly) July 2, 2014

"You see that life is bigger,sweeter,more tragic and intense—more alive with meaning…" In praise of the English major http://t.co/41tWXo9U9U

— Explore (@Explorer) May 17, 2014

Real reading is reincarnation. There is no other way to put it. It is being born again into a higher form of consciousness than we ourselves possess.

“The English major at her best isn’t used by language; she uses it. She bends it, inflects it with irony, and lets hyperbole bloom like a firework flower when the time’s right. She knows that language isn’t there merely to represent the world but to interpret it. Language lets her say how she feels.”

I’ve tried to suggest that at least a portion of that pursuit can have gratifying economic results. (Plus it will not plunge us into an endless recession!) But that’s not really the point. The point is truth and beauty, without which our lives will lack grace and meaning and our civilization will be spiritually hollowed out and the historical bottom line will be that future epochs will remember us as a coarse and philistine people who squandered our bottomlessly rich cultural inheritance for short-term and meaningless financial advantage.

And that is why you should major in English.

Gerald Howard in today's New York Times