this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I envy these linguists' ability to either not be irked by grammar errors at all or to be able to deal with their irritation when errors arise.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

They actually are the reverse of irked, cause like an archaeologist finding a new artefact, they find the cool thing of evidence of the shift of language.

Not errors, evidence of change

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

What's your opinion of the word "neologologist" and are you proposing that these "most linguists" are in fact described by it? And what do you think their opinion of it would be? ;p

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 17 hours ago

I would say that most aren't, but some definitely are

It's a study of both the past and the present, many study both, many study just one, some flip-flop between

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I also envy their ability to understand what was meant, because sometimes there are enough errors to make meaning completely impossible to discern

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

There's this thing in linguistics, casual language requires backchanneling - to respond back with either short utterances that show you understand, or to show confusion and then ask for clarity

The reason formal language is formalised, as in the shit used in essays, is that there is no easy way to say "what did you mean?" - the feedback loop is far too slow for that process and by the point the author(s) get to respond they likely forget what they meant as well