linguisticians

[Paul Frank]

>>By the way, what do professional linguists (i.e. those trained in
>>linguistics) think about the popular use of the word linguist to designate
>>someone who knows several languages but does not necessary know anything
>>about linguistics? I wouldn't call myself a linguist myself, since I
>>wouldn't know a morpheme if it hit me in the face, but other people
>>sometimes do call me a linguist for the simple reason that I know a couple
>>of languages.
>
>It has that, and other meanings, and I suppose we have to be at peace with
>that, but I use 'polyglot' for that meaning.
>
>Lynne

Oops. I meant to write "does not necessarily know." To my ear polyglot is
an ugly word, but that's just me. Paul Dean trashes Words on Words, but
since he thinks linguists are linguisticians perhaps he's not to be
trusted. It's published by Penguin and the University of Chicago.



Paul
_____________________________________
Paul Frank
Business, financial and legal translation
 From German, French, Chinese, Spanish,
Italian, Portuguese and Dutch into English
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu | Thollon, France