Pangloss

The philosopher in Voltaire's Candide. He believes "All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds." Even as he suffers horribly throughout the book, he stands by this concept. By the end of the book, though, he admits "he asserted it still, but he no longer believed it."

See also: panglossian

Bob thinks there's some good that will come out of him failing his English test. He's such a Pangloss. He can't accept it might just be bad.

bear

1. (n.) A large hairy mammal, sometimes, but not always, carnivorous, that often breaks into campsites and trash cans looking for food.
2. (v.) To carry or to have

1. I went camping but didn't lock up my food so a bear came and stole it in the night.
2. He has a heavy load to bear.

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policy debate

An obscure cult with its own distinct language understood only by members. The members speak incredibly quickly and think even faster. They tend to also be motivated students and often exhibit a mild form of OCD.

Such debaters engage in conversation with each other on a much higher level than the average human, both in and out of round. The student government and honor roll within a school typically consist mostly of debaters. 80% of congress debated in high school.

Membership in the cult lasts from 9th grade through 12th grade and sometimes through college, but the mannerisms and knowledge gained from it manifest themselves in all aspects of the current or former debater's life for the better.

Policy debate kicks aff.

I spent all last weekend hitting people, cutting and spewing. We broke and all the judges picked me up, but this one lay judge dropped me. I also got top speaks. Now I'm going to do uniqueness updates for my disad, then cut some a2 perm cards on the counterplan and come up with a kritikal aff so I can win framework.

I finally mastered the pen flip!

A: Did you hear so-and-so got into all 7 ivy's?
B: Really? he must be a debater.

Policy debate is SHITS (Significance, Harms, Inherency, Topicality, Solvency)

If you understood all the above, you're a policy debater.

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LD debate

A form of debate inferior to policy, as proved by its lack of a definition on urban dictionary. Although it varies around the country, it generally emphasizes presentation more than policy does. However, at many tournaments, the speed is catching up to policy.

There are two types of LDers: policy LDers and traditional LDers. Policy LDers spew and read cards off computers, and lose when they have lay judges. Traditional LDers speak slowly, act politely, make eye-contact, and win only when they have lay judges.

It is named after the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The topic changes every two months and usually relates to whether an action or policy is just. An LDer talks about a value and a kriterion, and cites philosophers in their scattered cards.

Did you see that team? They weren't spewing and they kept looking up at the judge. They must have been LDers. We won, of course.

This was more of a policy-style LD debate tournament. None of the old school kids broke.

This was more of a traditional LD tournament. None of the spewers broke. Stupid lay judges who can't comprehend kritiks.

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Public Forum

debate for kids who either:
1. are too unintelligent to do a real event,
2. can't do their normal event at a tournament and want to be in an event that's easy to win,
3. don't really like debate but want it on their transcripts,
4. don't have time for real debate, or
5. want to practice empty rhetoric.

Ted Turner invented the event so that he could use the "Crossfire" from CNN in a high school activity, but after its first year in existence he disowned it because the debaters were too rude and whiny. Hence the current name, public forum.

This event almost always has lay-judges, or mommy judges, as real debaters call them. The team with the best voice wins. The topic is always simplistic and changes every month. The emphasis is on dumbing down the world so you can explain it to an idiot.

1. I tried so many times to explain the parts of a disad to him, but it was just over his head, so he switched to PF instead.
2. We could only take 4 teams in policy, so they had to go in public forum. They still qualified to nationals, even though they'd never done it before.
3. She's really good at science. She won the international science fair last year, but she wanted to have debate on her transcript, so she's doing PF.
4. He used to love debate, but this year he's taking so many AP classes that he doesn't have time, so he just does PF.
5. She's running for student body president next year and wants to learn how to talk pretty, so she's doing PF.

That lay-judge forgot which team was which and marked the wrong team as the winner. Oh well, such is PF.

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