(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

[dtm]

No one (except another math major) asks a math major follow-up questions; people are just inspired to spontaneously confess their dislike and/or incompetence with something they consider Mathematics. "I never liked math", "math kicked my ass in college", "I was fine with math until calculus", "I can't even figure out a tip", etc.

My sister-in-law is a very small woman who happens to play the bass violin professionally. (she supplements her income giving private lessons in the cello and bass) Douglas Adams was dead on about the typical reaction:

Dirk gave a non-committal type of nod. "Amongst other things," he said. Then he added, "I'm a private detective."
"Oh?" said Kate in surprise, and then looked puzzled.
"Does that bother you?"
"It's just that I have a friend who plays the double bass."
"I see," said Dirk.
"Whenever people meet him and he's struggling around with it, they all say the same thing, and it drives him crazy. They all say, ‘I bet you wished you played the piccolo.’ Nobody ever works out that that's what everybody else says. I was just trying to work out if there was something that everybody would always say to a private detective, so that I could avoid saying it."
"No. What happens is that everybody looks very shifty for a moment, and you got that very well."
"I see." Kate looked disappointed.

[ztbb.livejournal.com]

i get "what are the applications of the math you do?" all the time.