"Bargaining Chip": Antedating & Mystery

[Mark A Mandel]

On Wed, 14 Aug 2002, Alice Faber wrote:

#Dennis R. Preston said:
#>
#>
#>
#>>Dennis R. Preston said:
#>>>What nonsense. This contribution (sic) apparently means that people
#>>>who are trained in historical and etymological linguistics, since
#>>>they participate in a "public" list, are required to take specious
#>>>crap and treat it with academic seriousness.
#>>>
#>>>Perhaps we need to revisit the concept of this list; friend that I am
#>>>of folk linguistics, I need to spend a little time away from the
#>>>folk, discussing my work and commenting on the work of others who
#>>>have professional training in the field.
#>>>

        [dInIs]
#>>>Why is it that we (so often) have this discussion in linguistics and
#>>>never in chemistry, physics, acoustics, etc... ? My (unhappy)
#>>>conclusion is still that, in the public mind, linguistics lacks
#>>>scientific status and "my comments about language" are just a valid
#>>>as anybody's.

        [Alice Faber]
#>>My cousin the senior big shot astronomer gets as much of this stuff
#>>(lack of respect for the academic training) as we do. We've spent
#>>time commiserating at family gatherings.

        [dInIs, round 2]
#>Don't astronomers have to deal with astrologists?

        [Alice, round 2]
#Absolutely, not to mention the von Daniken crowd.

Not just etymology! The LINGUIST List gets the occasional crank posting
announcing a
        website /
        mailing list /
        book
about
        Nostratic-Uralic-MacroDinean /
        Minoan spirit channelings /
        (you invent the next one, you'll do at least as well)

But in partial answer to dInIs #1: Everybody's fluent in their native
language. They tend to think, therefore, that they know everything there
is to be known about it. If they study another language, the same hubris
tends to extend to that, and eventually to all of language. Granted, for
some, the *second* language opens the eyes to all that they were missing
in the first and evokes a proper humility.

-- Mark A. Mandel