(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

[rdansky.livejournal.com]

"Will you hire me?"

Or words to that effect. Everyone thinks they can write, working in video games is cool (and all you do is play games, right?) and combining the two creates something even more irresistable than a Scooby Snack. I'm very happy to talk professionally about game writing and what it entails - long hours, repetition, integration into teams, long-term commitment, and so forth - but it is a very competitive field with some fairly stringent demands. The notion that I can wave my magic hiring wand and turn someone into a game writer (or even better, throw them some part-time game writing on the side) carries with it an implicit set of assumptions about my job and what it takes to do it.

Here endeth the admittedly unimportant rant.