November 01, 2007

An open letter

Lance Nathan, doing business as eternally stressed semanticist, posted a wonderful "open letter" on LiveJournal. It begins:

Dear [□ Sir / □ Madam / □ Representative / □ Journalist / □ Idiot],

I know you believe you know a great deal about

[□ linguistics / □ children's literature / □ law / □ psychology / □ other (please specify)]

simply because you

[□ use language / □ read Harry Potter and Goodnight Moon / □ watch Law & Order / □ have a mind],

or because you've read a newspaper article about

[□ the lack of numbers in Pirahã / □ Dumbledore being gay / □ some Supreme Court decision / □ Prozac].

Go read the rest, and the follow-up post too. (Hat tip, The Ridger.)

Posted by Benjamin Zimmer at November 1, 2007 11:49 PM