CHAT: Lx humor

On Sat, 26 Feb 2000, B Elliott Walker wrote:

> Hey.
>
> Don't be too surprised at the lack of response. I've seen the
> volume, even read the papers. They're okay, as far as they go--
> lots of late '60s radical political stuff mixed in with not very
> serious linguistics; it's a historical curiosity anymore. Of
> course the whole volume was *meant* to be tongue in cheek, but
> like the old Laugh-In, the jokes just aren't funny anymore (at
> least to this Me-Generation linguist).
>
> Dirk
>
> ...I'v found this collection of essays to be amusing, if not hilarious. it's
> politics now are outdated, of course, but the references are so obvious it's
> hard to miss them. I'v found out through the linguist list that this
> collection was actually reprinted not too long ago (1992), which should say
> something for its enduring popularity. I'v found it rather strange that
> there hasn't been any other things along this line - it seems to have the
> notoreity of the same sort as 'the body rituals of the nacirema' has to the
> anthropology set.
Oh yeah. Don't get me wrong! I enjoyed the McCauley festschrift
when I read it, and linguists certainly need larger and more
frequent doses of satire. A nice volume to look at is Geoff
Pullum's collection entitled _The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax_.
The essays in this book are reprints of a column he used to
write for the journal _Natural Language and Linguistic Theory_
called "Topic ... Comment". They're hilarious.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu