TOL

I forget, from time to time, how much I love the Language Log blog. During my master's degree days, I signed up for a fabulous class, Theories of Language. Strangely, I was the only poet in the class. Some of the poets subscribed to the "'theory' will kill your poems" school, others to the "'theory' is the only game in town" school. And neither school wants to play too much with linguists. So there I sat with a bunch of multi-lingual, very smart people who paid a lot of attention to language, more so than poets, even, I found. We did have an odd-ball or two, including the rail-thin woman who would systematically eat her way through a pound of Skittles during class and who believed that dogs could talk. Or her dogs. To her. Maybe angels, too, but I think she disappeared right after the mid-term. It was an important class for me, not least because I made at least one really good friend ('lo, Kat). I learned to be deeply suspicious who say, "I think language works like this. . . " without any grounding except their own preciousness. And I learned responses to language/grammar snobs about pronunciation and usage (this includes my mother, who's a bit addled about these things). But back to Language Log. They have hilarity--found here--lots of responses to, and meditations on, comic strips (just go and scroll down), and the Becky Awards.

The winner this year: Dr. Louann Brizendine. It's a treat. And if you go back over to the Becky Awards link, you can find sixteen (!) comments on her wrongness. Let hilarity ensue.

Comments

[Kat]

When I asked you what grade you made on the mid-term, and you just made a steeple with your hands, I knew I would like you.

Also -
I knew Hazen, and (for the most part) the answers he wanted to hear. What did my grade mean compared to yours? You went in blind and did well just the same.
Your work was impressive.