Re: "Coming out" about conlanging to people in Academia [was Re: Caryatic]

<de-lurking>

Well, I'm not in Academia and probably never will be, but I've told my wife,
brother-in-law, a coworker, and a fellow writer about my conlang.  It's like
turning off a switch.  Thank goodness there's the weather to talk about,
plus whatever they want to talk about.  I'll conjugate on my own time.

Guy

</de-lurking>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas R. Wier [mailto:artabanos@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU]
> Sent: Friday, July 20, 2001 4:29 AM
> To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
> Subject: "Coming out" about conlanging to people in Academia [was Re:
> Caryatic]
>
>
> J Matthew Pearson wrote:
>
> > He knew that I was a conlanger (I 'came out' to him about
> it at one of our
> > dinners)--but, like most people, he expressed no particular
> interest in the
> > details.  Neither did he discourage me, though.  There are plenty of
> > conlangers in the linguistics field, most of them flying
> just below the
> > radar.
>
> How many of us here have "come out" to people in academia, and what
> have the responses been like?
>
> An anecdote:
> A couple months ago I attended a session of the UT Linguistic
> Circle, after
> which everyone customarily always goes over to the Texas
> Union's pub for
> some beer and good conversation.   Somehow, the topic got
> onto languages
> people knew, and someone mentioned that they knew some Esperanto, at
> which point I quietly affirmed the same.  I then mentioned
> that I had gotten
> disillusioned with Esperanto and thereafter began trying to
> make my own.
> There was a weird dichotomy:  the people who weren't in
> tenured or tenure-
> track positions gave the verbal equivalent of a blink, and
> politely asked
> about it, while those who were, while not acting impolitely,
> gave me a look
> like "What a bizarre thing you have just said".   I
> immediately noticed this,
> and tried to play it down by quoting the joke my friend
> occasionally says about
> me needing to find someone else to hold up the other end of
> the politcal banner
> demanding language rights for speakers of my language.  The
> guy I was talking to
> gave a kind of nervous laugh and immediately changed the
> subject.  It was a
> weird experience, and has made me chary of opening up
> publically about my
> conlanging.
>
> ===================================
> Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier
>
> "Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
>   entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
> autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
>   erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos
>