(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

[saxikath]

"Do you cover evolution?" is the only question that I get asked at all regularly when I tell people what I do. (Yes, we do. It's science.) It's not really that annoying, but it's the only one I can think of.

My avocation sometimes gets, "Oh, like jigsaw puzzles?" But not all that often.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

You silly word nerds with your dorkfests.

[saxikath]

...what's an 8-letter word for...

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

Any question that gets asked all the time gets tiresome, but "Do you cover evolution" seems like a totally reasonable question to ask. I don't see it as asking "Is evolution really science?" but rather "How do you cope with the pressure from the textbook approvers in states like Texas to soft-pedal evolution?"