How to explain linguistics to your friends and family this holiday season

This time of year often involves leaving the cozy sanctuary of your linguistics department where everyone knows what a wug is and spending quality time with your non-linguist friends and family. Who, bless ‘em, are often a little bit confused about linguistics. So I’ve compiled a list of common questions and some resources to help you answer them. And if you end up needing a break, check out the linguistmas tag and my extensive archive of linguist humour, or contribute to the linguistics baked goods or handcrafts files. 

What is linguistics exactly? 

Explaining what linguistics is using geology and biology analogies
Brain surgeon analogy
Car analogy
Botany analogy
Subfields of linguistics explained using toy metaphors
“Becoming conscious of previously unconscious phenomena is one of the principle joys of linguistic work”

So, you’re a linguist? How many languages do you know? 

Why linguists hate being asked how many languages they know
Learning languages linguistically
Turning “how many languages do you know?” into a good conversation using Gricean Maxims 

Wow, linguistics, I guess I’d better watch my grammar around you, right?

8 myths about language and linguistics
On the interplay between copyediting and descriptivism
We each have an idiolect, and they’re all okay
How to have a conversation about language differences without being a prescriptivist

People these days with their texting and their emoji and their phones, what’s that even doing to language? 

I literally wrote you a whole book about that

But, if you’re pressed for time, you could hand ‘em off a few of my articles instead

That’s not even in the dictionary! So many people are degrading language these days! 

Anne Curzan on what makes a word “real”
xkcd on kids and text abbreviations and on grammar police vs fashion police
Erin McKean, actual lexicographer, on what it means when a word isn’t in the dictionary
The kilogram model of language and what’s wrong with the America’s ugliest accent challenge
Language is open source
Which English you speak has nothing to do with how smart you are
People have been complaining about kids degrading language since the Middle Ages
The many problems with the idea that emoji are in any way threatening the English language
Kids these days aren’t ruining language

Don’t you just hate it when people say…?

In defence of “unnecessary” words
Every argument you’ll ever need for singular “they” (plus the Canadian government’s support of it, why do we even have gendered pronouns, and a comparison with singular “you”)
In defence of hyperbolic “literally”
Vocal fry and can we stop hating on how young women talk?
When it comes to Rachel Jeantel, who’s really on trial here? 
Can we just, like, get over the way women talk?
Move over Shakespeare, teen girls are the real language disruptors
The problem with talking about “sounding gay”
Why Chaucer said “ax” instead of “ask” and why some still do
An interview with Alexandra D’Arcy about why “like” is so interesting

____ isn’t a real language! 

Indigenous languages, literacy, and the myth of the “unwritten language”
What if we talked about monolingual White children the way we talk about low-income children of color?
Myth-busting about sign languages
The strange reason deaf children aren’t taught sign language

______ [insert other linguistics myth here]

An advice thread I wrote about cheerful mythbusting and playing “I’m a linguist, ama” at parties

A linguistics degree? What are you going to do with that?

Check out the linguistics jobs series to help think about options beyond academia, or send people there to reassure them that options exist. 

What kinds of gifts can I give the linguist in my life?

An extensive list of pop linguistics books and lingfic (be sure to read the comments!)
Here are linguistics merch/gift guide roundups from 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and Lingthusiasm merch: IPA scarves and descriptivist t-shirts, bags, and mugs

So I know this young person who might be interested in linguistics. Do you have any advice for them?

Any of the books in the list of books!
How to teach yourself linguistics online for free 
Intrigued by the linguistics in Arrival? Here’s what to check out next

Specifically for high schoolers: How to participate in the international linguistics olympiad and Linguistics resources for high school teachers

Advice on finding a linguistics undergrad, whether to go to grad school for linguistics (and more advice), and how to pick a linguistics graduate program

Tell me something interesting about linguistics! 

My go-to at parties is the script in Explaining English plurals to non-linguists, or put on any episode of Lingthusiasm.  

For a longer list of linguistic writing pitched at non-linguists, try here for articles I’ve written, here for other blogs, or here for some of my top blog posts. To write your own, see advice for writing pop linguistics articles and how pop linguistics differs from teaching and pop science. Or go for linguistics videos,  linguistically-relevant games, or this list of linguistics and language podcasts.  

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Notes

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