1. “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out”
Dave Barry

2. About the Selection
Dave Barry is one of America’s best known and most prolific humorists.
He relies on exaggeration and generalization to make readers laugh.

3. Question #1 What is the purpose of Barry’s essay? How do you know?
Barry’s purpose is to entertain and amuse.

4. Question #1
Broad generalizations: “The primary difference between men and women is that women can see extremely small quantities of dirt.”
Tall tales: “hormonal secretion” and the Pompeii example (par. 2)
Exaggeration: “clumps large enough to support agriculture”; “bacteria you could enter in a rodeo”

5. Question #1
Self-effacement: “an important project on the Etch-a-Sketch” and the pajamas anecdote (par. 4)
Tongue-in-cheek tone: “my specific family unit”; “Standard Male Cleaning Implements”; “a sensitive and caring kind of guy”; “human relationships or something”

6. Question #2
How objective is Barry’s portrayal of men and women? Does he seem to understand one sex better than the other?
Barry is anything but objective. He is clearly writing from a male point of view, and he understands male behavior.

7. Question #3
Does Barry seek to justify and excuse male sloppiness and antisocial behavior?
His tone is far too teasing for the essay to be taken as justification of boorish behavior.
Barry makes as much fun of himself as of anyone else.

8. Question #4
What can you infer about Barry’s attitude toward the differences between the sexes? Does he see a way out?
Barry seems to take the differences between the sexes as a given.
He is less interested in reconciliation than in exploiting gender misunderstandings for their humorous potential.

9. Question #5
Barry’s comparison is organized point by point --- differences in sensitivity to dirt, then differences in sensitivity to sports. What is the effect of this organization?
A subject-by-subject organization would have undermined Barry’s examples, which depend on the interaction of women and men to make their point.

10. Question #6
How does Barry set the tone of this piece from the first paragraph?
From the first ironic sentence we know to take everything Barry says with a grain of salt.

11. Question #7
The first sentence looks like a thesis statement but turns out not to be complete. Where does Barry finish his statement of the essay’s thesis?
This could be a thesis sentence for the first half of the essay, but then Barry goes on to talk about sports.
Barry continues his thesis with “The opposite side of the dirt coin, of course, is sports.”

12. Question #8
How does Barry’s allusion to Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart” (par.7) enhance Barry’s own story?
Barry effectively appropriates the force of Poe’s story, giving his own anecdote an added dimension.
The incongruity of Poe’s horror story and Barry’s domestic scene produces a comic effect.

13. Question #9
How persuasive is the historical example cited in paragraph 2 as evidence for Barry’s claims about men’s and women’s differing abilities to perceive dirt? Must examples always be persuasive?
The example is obviously invented. Its purpose is not to persuade but, like everything else in the essay, to amuse.

14. Question #10
Hormonal- related to any of various internally secreted compounds that affect the functions of specific organs or tissues, usually causing emotional variances
Implements-equipment; gear; tools
Callous- heartless; uncaring; unfeeling

15. Question #10 Irate- very angry; enraged Jovial- cheerful; jolly
Gaffe- blunder; mistake; error
Prattled- talked idly or meaninglessly
Pivotal- essential; key; crucial

16. Question #11
Paragraph 4 begins with a textbook example of a run-on sentence. Is Barry going for an effect here? If so, what is it?
The breathless, digressive nature of the sentence adds to the humor of the anecdote. It has the oral quality of someone gossiping on the phone.

17. Question #12
What effect does Barry achieve with frequent italics and capital letters?
The reader can hear the emphasis in Barry’s voice, the near hysteria of “during a World Series game” (par. 6), the sports announcer tone of “Annual Fall Classic.”