A quick word poll

[resonant]

Yes, for a story.

[Poll #966671]

Comments

[sociofemme.livejournal.com]

Qualifying the answer: I took a linguistics class in college, that's all--but I knew the word before then.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I suspect we're all self-selected to be a little word-geekier than the general population (or than John Sheppard, who's the reason for the poll). But I didn't want to write a story assuming it was a slightly obscure word, only to have, like, coal miners e-mail me and say, "Hey, everybody knows that word."

[sociofemme.livejournal.com]

Ah! Well, unless he was a spelling-bee wanna-be (my reason), I'd doubt he knows it. But who knows!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is wildly off the path I'm going down, but now I'm just thinking slightly obsessively about John Sheppard, National Spelling Bee contestant.

Because that whole football-lovin', 200-miles-an-hour-goin' persona of his is obviously the product of careful construction -- the entire fandom has spotted that -- but the idea that underneath it beats the heart of a would-be spelling champ ... !

[is in love]

[sociofemme.livejournal.com]

If that story ends up happening, I am going to be unendingly smug. That said, I think it would be incredibly adorable! I love secretly geeky!John, and you do him so well (ahem. so does rodney.)

Spelling Bee from SB

[(Anonymous)]

If you decide to pursue this (oooh, pretty please), I'm reading a book you might want to use for research, American Bee by James Maguire (from Rodale Press. LC # LB1574.M27 2006). He gives the history of the Bee, profiles past and present spellers, and devotes a good section to the history of English orthography. A fun read, too.

-Skinner Box

[misspamela.livejournal.com]

I don't want to look, because I think I'll probably be the only linguistics person who doesn't know what it means.

[kalpurna.livejournal.com]

Hee! No, me too!

[bipagan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for teaching a new word today. Sometimes I really wonder about that Masters degree and if it did any good. So many words, so little time.

[jelazakazone.livejournal.com]

I cheated. I didn't know what it meant, so I went and looked it up. I know now:)

[laura-redcloud.livejournal.com]

I'm about to graduate with a 3.9 GPA, Linguistics degree from a major American university, and I don't have a clue.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I've learned it from Cereta :)

[niangao.livejournal.com]

I've now Wikipedia-ed the word, but my one linguistics class failed me on this one ^^"

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

And when I looked it up, I remembered deluker, who *is* a linguistics student, telling me about it. The concept stuck, but not the word.

[karabou.livejournal.com]

Wayul, now I know what it means 'cause the poll made me curious enough to look it up. XD

[kalimyre.livejournal.com]

I have no idea, except for the vague idea that it must be somehow related to 'emphatic' which it probably is not. Fortunately, I'm an accountant and don't have to know these things.

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

learned it once in highschool, never forgot it - so obvious and useful and such! the concept and word stuck.
of course now I am a 'sort of" linguistic student: i've done some linguistics this eyar in the course of me translation classes.

[aebhel.livejournal.com]

So...does this mean that there's a new sg:a story in the making? Cool.

And I know it because, while I've never taken a linguistics course in my life, I did take two semesters of ancient Greek. Which probably doesn't make me any less geeky, now that I think of it.

[funkyreunion.livejournal.com]

I did linguistics both undergrad and grad (Ph.D); and I have no clue.

[starwatcher]

.
I said 'no' -- but context makes a lot of difference. Used in a sentence, I'd probably understand it.
.

[claire.livejournal.com]

Well, I took the poll, then looked it up and I know now.

Although the closest I've ever come to being a Linguistics student is fixing the PC of the Head of Linguistics dept and the Uni I used to work at.

[melodyunity.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't know it, but I do now! Nifty! Thanks for the new word!

[exceptinsects.livejournal.com]

I've been kind of an amateur linguistics student for a long time, but only have taken one official class. Still, I picked "yes".

However, I didn't learn the word in linguistics class--I learned it in library school, I think in a class called Infomation-Seeking Behavior. It was in the context of a reference interview, i.e. using phatic communication (Hi, how are you?) to establish a rapport before you can get to the nitty-gritty of what the person actually wants.

Soooo, why do you want to know? Are you going to write a reference librarian AU? (PLEASE PLEASE SAY YES OMG I WOULD DIEEEE)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I am now overwhelmed with the desire to take a class called Information-Seeking Behavior. (It's even niftier because it's an example of itself, like the way MS Word's spell-checker flags 'nitpick' and offers 'nit-pick'!)

No library AU (alas), just a smutlet for which it's important that John not know what the word means.

[kelliem.livejournal.com]

I didn't, but I do know. Thank you for introducing me to a new word!

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

It's 8.21am on a Sunday morning, and I learned a new word already. Yayz. Now it's time for a nap.

[skuf.livejournal.com]

So is it like calling out "Oi!" to get someone's attention or what?

[mutecornett.livejournal.com]

It's not exclusive to linguistics, I think? It's one of Jakobson's six functions, and I think Jakobson's also covered in... English? And maybe Anthropology?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

Yeah, isn't sociolinguistics the black sheep of American linguistics? Or am I just still bitter because I came into college wanting to be, like, a Discourse Analysis major and found out my school offered one sociolinguistics class?

(Which I took for fun, and learned the word "phatic" in, but then forgot, so I'm listed as a double-no on the poll...)

[mutecornett.livejournal.com]

You're at Swarthmore? I'd applied there but I didn't know the ling department had barely any socioling classes. We recently got in a professor specializing in linguistic anthropology, so we have a whole bunch of sociolinguistics classes but now the anthro department wants to eat us whole.

(I hear to try UChicago for grad school if you're into sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology?)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

Well, it used to be a really tiny department, and although it seems to be growing and growing there still aren't a lot of courses. Here's what's offered next semester, e.g. (although to be fair you can also take courses at our three sister colleges):

Intro; Language, Culture, & Society (*); Psychology of Language; Semantics; Phonology (**); Syntax; independent study; field research; senior honors thesis.

(*) aforementioned Sole Sociolinguistics Class, offered every two years
(**) through some charming bureaucratic mistake actually listed as "Phonology & Phonology"

Anyway, I am getting my kicks as an English/Philosophy major, which gives me enough time to fret about language in a totally squishy, unsystematic, humanities kind of way. <3

[akite.livejournal.com]

I learned a new word. Thank you kindly. (which is a phatic expression *g*)

[goat-song.livejournal.com]

I refuse to learn what this word means now. *shuts eyes to all definitions*

[saffronhouse.livejournal.com]

Oooh, cool word! (that I know now, after running to look it up)