(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

[spenceraloysius.livejournal.com]

I solved my inevitable question issue. When I was younger, people would ask me what I do and I would say, "I do research." This led to "What kind of research do you do?" Which is hard to explain. So, then I tried, "I'm a biochemist." which often leads to "oh" and a blank look, but infrequently leads to "What does a biochemist do?" I've also substituted biophysicist, and x-ray crystallographer for biochemist, but that always ends with blank looks and occasionally fearful looks. I have settled for, "I'm work on curing cancer." This engenders awed looks and the usual comment of "You must be really smart." But, no inevitable questions because, I think, I've found the statement that has no reasonable followup. People who really want to know will then ask about my research, but this usually ends with confused or glazed looks.

[spenceraloysius.livejournal.com]

And, no, there is nothing more fundamental about me than my work. I'm just that boring.

[saxikath]

I do get "You must be really smart" sometimes, too.

[spenceraloysius.livejournal.com]

Have you found a reasonable reply to that comment? It has always made me sort of uncomfortable.

[saxikath]

No. It makes me uncomfortable too.

Usually I sort of laugh it off, or make a remark about how textbooks are done by committee, but no, I don't have a good answer for it.

[entropyspring.livejournal.com]

What I hate about being in biomedical research are the folks who ask me "so I saw this guy on insert-news-show-here who was working on curing cancer" -- as if the scientific community keeps tabs on who's been on TV lately -- and then follows up with "do you know him?" as if everyone who works on cancer research knows each other or "what's your opinion of that?" as if I can glean enough information from what they remember of the TV show to have a scientific opinion.

My usual response is "oh, that sounds interesting...it's not exactly in my field, so I don't know much about it."

Or the people who hear that I'm a Biomedical Engineer and actually ask me for health care advice.

But those are the good responses. The usual response is "wow..." followed by dead silence.