(no subject)

[tahnan]

There's a question that linguists get all the time after they tell someone they're a linguist, which is, "How many languages do you speak?" It's an intensely frustrating question, because it misses much of the point of the work a linguist does.

Similarly, I know that friends who have masters' degrees in children's literature dread questions about whether that means that they're writing a children's book. (Also, nearly any question that mentions Harry Potter.)

So I ask my readers, out of curiosity. When you tell people something fundamental about who you are or what you do ("I'm a linguist"; "I have a Masters' in Children's Literature"; "I'm from Serbia"; "I have a wooden leg"; "I brew beer"; or what have you), what question is it that you dread getting in return, but which seems to be fairly inevitable?

Comments

[colorwheel.livejournal.com]

the name "chronic fatigue syndrome" makes people say "hey, i'm tired too. maybe i have it!"

they find themselves very funny and cute when they say it. and they halfway mean it too.

this is a big reason why many patients prefer the name cfids -- chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome -- whether or not cfids is an immune dysfunction. we don't even care, we just want a name that sounds real. (recent research indicates it's a gene problem.)

in england, i'd have "myalgic encephalomyelitis."

(it doesn't help that "chronic fatigue" -- just fatigue that is chronic, not a syndrome -- is a symptom tons of people have for a billion different reasons, some of which are the exact things that cfids isn't, like depression and deconditioning.)