firespeaker.org

Ray: "Phonetics can be a turn off."

Mark: "Depends on how you teach it, Ray."

Ray: "Most of these people [taking intro to linguistics] won't become majors—"

Mark: "And shouldn't."

Mark: "From your mouth to God's ear."

linguist: "It's an Indian mouth—he won't hear."

"And you're going to think, ‘Oh, the big thing is OT Pragmatics—I should do that.’"

me: "That's an abstract?!"

anonymous: "It's a very abstract..."

"[In phonology,] you can't just say ‘Oh, that's PF.’"

"Why do we keep weird strong verbs around for thousands of years?"

"Linguistic theory is your friend."

"I myself am a theoretical phonologist, but in the late '80s, my eyes were beginning to glaze over and I was saying ‘I don't care where to hang [lateral].’"

my mother: "Did you put all your candy in a bag?"

me: "Nah, I just took some wrapping paper and put it all in there."

my mother: "But it's not a bag..."

me: "It's taped together though."

my mother: "But I taped it..."