(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

The joys of children

[mrswebchik.livejournal.com]

When people find out I have four children and a husband who is gone all week and I go to school, they always ask "How do you do it?". You just do it. You don't think about how, or you would go insane.

When they find out that I'm in the IT field professionally, they always ask about programming. I don't program. I refuse to program. Mild HTML is the closest I come. Or they assume I make tons of money. Yeah, right.

When I was pregnant, my favorite was "Is this your first?". And the looks when I told them, no, it was my 6th pregnancy, 4th child. Heh.

I think that's most of it. Now I'll be thinking about this all night...