You may have noticed that I disabled comments on this blog. This was mostly to protect the people posting comments from future embarrassment.
Each year, around the time that school goes back in session, I receive several helpful comments about the blog that insult me and make me question the time and effort that goes into making any future posts. I mention schools being back in session because I suspect that these comments are coming from students VERY early in their linguistics studies.
For example, not long ago a comment came that was so full of assumptions that I had to read it twice to make sure it wasn't a joke. To the person who posted that "ALL languages have..." and made assumptions about baseball and the like: linguistics is a science and one needs to develop scientific thinking. If you find yourself using words like "always", "never", "all languages", you probably haven't yet developed your skills of scientific thinking. By the way, you'll realize why you were incorrect when your class gets up to constructed languages.
Ah, the confidence of the neophyte.
Tonight, I received a comment calling me an "idiot" from a person who cannot tell the difference between Latin and Italian. Having lived in Italy for years myself, I can assure that your "correction" was indeed Italian. You kind of missed the point of the post, it seems. What stuns me is that he took to write and submit the comment demonstrating this fact.
I guess it might be better if a single one of these helpful comments had been spelled correctly or had correct grammar. And, I know that many people have found the blog helpful and interesting (thanks for those comments). But, sometimes I wonder why I take the time.
Thanks for listening to the rant- it was a long time in the making. Next time: back to real linguistics.
