Who studied Linguistics?

Is there anything ferociously clever to say about Chancery Standard English that immediately springs to y'all's minds, by the way?

Most people ask if I know lots of languages. I do not. I have been guilty of making "cunning linguist" jokes. I am not proud.

that's my pet peeve...why can't they ask if i know how to draw grammar trees? oh wait, i got a bad grade in that class, though. hmm...

I work in sales and marketing now but my plosives are immaculate.

Bono
Goldie Hawn
Derek Jeter
Dame Edith
Booker T.
Algernon Swinburne
Neal Cassidy
Charlie McCarthy (honorary degree)

*cracks up* I like that.

a. actor types [spit]
b. people asking if i've ever "been a tree" (like the languages question i guess)
c. tumbleweeds rolling past...

(I can't be arsed to type that all out again, sorry)

I think it's the kind of field of study that just helps you *think* more clearly and understand other people's thinking more clearly. Whether or not your job directly relates to linguistics, learning the system of language, how language works, can't hurt in every field. Just like experience waitressing, the skills that takes, can apply to any "more respectable" job.

even speech therapy is out the window,not least because the speech therapy students were studyiong in their 1st week, what it took me 2 years to get onto (ie phonetics *spit*)

so true. i was attracted to linguistics because it entailed knowledge of other subjects like of history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, neuro- and congnitive science, phonetics, computer programming (but that's if your hardcore about creating a synthetic speech environment), etc....and to most people's surprise, fluency in a second language isn't so important--though it does help.

i noticed most other linguistics majors were also involved in other areas of study (french and cinema studies were also thrown on my degree--forgot most of those, as well) and that linguistics classes didn't have as many idiots as my other classes did.

i think a common trait among those who studied linguistics is the ability to handle various tasks, communicate themselves accurately (woohoo--go syntax!) and trouble-shoot. but it just comes across as bullshit once you say something like that in an interview ;(

unfortunately, now most of what i learned is relegated to winning useless trivia battles.

Anyone who studied linguistics (phonology in particular) will find this email I got from my listserv amusing and/or interesting. I spend a lot of time talking about past participles and suppose to/use to, so i guess this is of particular interest to me. I also like when phonology research is related to something I see/experience, rather than voiced bilabial variation in Tunisian Arabic or w/e.

I remind you again to join us at [redacted]'s defense of [gendered pronoun] MA thesis:

PHONOLOGY-BASED NARROWING OF THE WRITTEN PAST PARTICIPLE
A Study of Web Advertising and Social Media

Abstract
Using data from blogs, online forums and product websites, this thesis examines the
written use of the bare verb where the past participle normally would have appeared in
standard written English. I refer to this use of the bare verb as the "bare PP." For example,
the sentence I think it's almost crazy to "strip down" your hair routine from what its use to, which appeared in a post on an online forum, would have read ‘I think it's almost crazy to "strip
down" your hair routine from what it's used to,’ had it been written in standard written English
("SWE"). I find that the standard PP has a narrower domain in the online writings sampled
in the data than it does in SWE. First, I observe that the missing inflection in the majority of
the bare PPs found in the data is the regular -ed infection that is pronounced in all varieties
of American English as [d] or [t], with the bare PP often functioning as a predicate adjective,
or with the resulting bare PP phrase containing an adjective-noun, noun-adjective or
noun-noun combination, all as permitted by the syntax of all varieties of spoken English.
Then, I argue that the bare PP occurs as people apply the phonology and syntax of spoken
English to writing, instead of applying the morphosyntactic rules of SWE. I conclude with a
discussion of the implications of these findings on theories of universality of syntactic
categories and the extent of influence of phonology on orthography.

I have noticed the proliferation of a thing when someone is trying to stretch out their answer to a question in order to sound 1) more serious/important 2) more compelling 3) more considered
so they use

"and…the FACT...THAT…" as a stalling device with a very different vowel sound in "fact" and "that" that takes it from their dialect's standard /æ/to something else that (lol) i can't quite identify because my IPA skills are kind of weak at this point, something slightly English but not overtly. i've heard that vowel sound in English dialects, but it's not put on in their case.

it's spreading like crazy tho, i heard zuckerberg do it yesterday on the radio during a press conference.
could just be young people and those who mimic them, i dunno.

this is a feature of oral language rather than writing so it's hard to collect samples. i'm not going to comb podcasts looking for it but my guess is that it's everywhere you find righteous outrage.

i was thinking the other day about the slight shift of accent/intonation that occurs whenever suffixes are added/removed to certain words

for instance: hypocrite --> hyPOCrisy; phiLOsophy --> philoSOPHical

xp is this the same phenomenon that happens when people pause mid sentence and begin the second clause with "aaaaaaaaaand..." with added dipthongs?

YES ^^ exactly in terms of usage but what diphthongs? tends to be used by a person with less power when talking to a person with more power (in the context of the conversation) ime.

rhetoric (i have a funny story about this word that marks what was probably the beginning of my interest in linguistics)
rhetorical

photograph
photographer/y

we did one of these in my class the other day, but i can't remember what it was. i have a whole list of them somewhere in a pronunciation book that teaches intonation.

it's like a nasal "ehhhh" followed by the usual american "standard" "ä" vowel (i think, i don't know ipa) sounded in the word "and"

oh, then not the same thing i don't think
in this video kathleen hanna does it or a similar sort of thing http://vimeo.com/71615840

listen to her vowel in "that"

photographical moves it one on again

it needs to be the antepenultimate syllable iirc

PHOtograph (3)
phoTOGraphy (4)
photoGRAphical (5)

I was half-assedly trying to explain something about prosody to my dad the other day, and I had this twinge of sadness about the fact that my days as a linguistics undergrad are increasingly distant in time and in relevance. I never did find a way to put this knowledge to particular use. In the spirit of the OP, I'm kind of curious as to what other linguistics BAs went on to do (outside of linguistics).

Let me rephrase that: I never found a way to put this knowledge to *professional* use. I think about linguistics and language stuff all the time, especially when writing.

my undergrad was in something else, but my master's is in linguistics
it does relate to my job, but in different ways than i initially expected

I thought it would help me when I interviewed for a job in an anthropology department (which I ended up getting) but I found out later it was a minus because they think all linguists are weirdos. Which is even funnier when you realize they were thinking "we want someone normal, like... an anthropologist."

ha, seriously
people who listen to everything you say and analyze it >>> people who analyze your every move

every time i hear someone pronounce the word "program" like /prowgɹəm/ (vs /prowgɹæm/) it makes them sound old and snooty/education-flaunty to me, but maybe it's a regional or generational thing?

i'm not very easily annoyed, but for some reason that vowel difference irritates me and i don't know why

it also sounds like pogrom which is a gross word

my mother and maternal grandmother both pronounce the word "poem" like 'po-IIm"

i like when people say poim

ugh.

sorry

poim is way better than /prowgɹəm/
it's like the voice of the oppressor or something

"funeral" pronounced like "fyoon-rul" creeps me out

Do: chomsky
See: pinker
Absorb: lakoff
Avoid: skinner

thanks for the hot tips

poim is cute

http://cashflowinvestor.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/hot-tips.jpg

Wait, how do you guys pronounce poem? Like pəʊm? Do you also read pəʊtrɪ?

http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/c1/c7699.jpg

IME /prowgɹəm/ is a generational thing. Reminds me of my grandma and I don't think I've ever heard a youngish person saying it.

Schwa-ing is an interesting phenomenon. I'm always struck when I hear eg. a Britisher or someone in an old movie schwa a vowel that current SAE speakers never would. For some reason Jack Nicholson in the Shining saying "The skiing up here must be /fən tæ' stIk/" sticks out in my mind.

when in doubt, schwa it out

i like when people say poim

Is that supposed to sound like 'know him' or 'coin'?

poym

tiny syllabic hiccup if you're really feelin it

I was reading a progra(!)mming book last night and it had an aside about how to pronounce "tuple" and I was floored, because it never even occurred to me that someone might pronounce it so it rhymes with supple. now that I have distracted you, I am pretty sure I schwa the /a/ in programming but not all the time.

I took three classes on it as an Anthropology major. It didn't really do much for me except give me the knowledge to explain to people about the Indo-European language family.

but there is so much more!

yeah there is a ton more

it's the sort of thing you'll like, if you like that sort of thing

This makes me super sad :(

“Folks, there’s nothing left from the Linguistics division. We lost all the indigenous languages collection: the recordings since 1958, the chants in all the languages for which there are no native speakers alive anymore, the Curt Niemuendaju archives: papers, photos, negatives, the original ethnic-historic-linguistic map localizing all the ethnic groups in Brazil, the only record that we had from 1945. The ethnological and archeological references of all ethnic groups in Brazil since the 16th century… An irreparable loss of our historic memory. It just hurts so much to see all in ashes.”
Cinda Gonda, translated by Diogo Almeida, about the fire at Brazil’s National Museum.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155734361103388&set=a.435081548387&type=3

me too
i posted about it on fb i was so sad, really tragic.

eeuugh, that's horrendous

Fuck

all that gone forever, just for the price of a functional + adequately maintained fire alarm/sprinkler system, and regular electrical testing, is how this seems to me :(

but, at least we have maintained the crucial principle that rich people can never be too rich

the expert i heard quoted on the radio was asked about his first reaction to the news and he said "rage" and then explained that they had asked >1x for some sort of support and received none
HUGE BUMMER