Bloodless Grammarians

ByJohn Brown

I’m beginning a study of linguistics. Well, an author’s study, which is different from getting a degree or anything like unto it. I’m looking for what’s useful for a specific project. And when I want to know about a subject, I’ve found it’s best to start with the juveniles and encylopedias so I can get the big picture and the actual pictures (who said picture books were for kids?) and then move to more detailed and specific stuff. Well, I came across a marvelous quote within the first 30 seconds of Wikipedia’s entry on Linguistics:

Linguistic inquiry is pursued by a wide variety of specialists, who may not all be in harmonious agreement; as journalist Russ Rymer put it:

“Linguistics is arguably the most hotly contested property in the academic realm. It is soaked with the blood of poets, theologians, philosophers, philologists, psychologists, biologists, anthropologists, and neurologists, along with whatever blood can be got out of grammarians.”

Whatever blood can be got…

(grin)

That’s going in a story, somewhere, I gotta use that somewhere.

Zing, Baby!

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