chronic.linguist

It was the name that did it.

On one apparently ordinary day—judging by the notification message in my inbox, it was July 27, 2005—I had a burst of inspiration. I suddenly realized that chroniclinguist would be a great name for a blog.

For those of you who don’t get it¹, it’s a pun because the study of linguistics can be divided into two groups: synchronic linguistics, the study of the nature of a language at a particular point in time, often the present; and diachronic linguistics, the study of language change over time. We learned these terms in my introductory linguistics class in Spring 2005—and I gradually came to realize that my obsession with linguistics was neither synchronic nor diachronic, but simply chronic. Members of my family will, no doubt, tell you that I’ve been correcting their grammar for as long as they can remember.² And, as much as I try my best to be a descriptivist outside of the home when it comes to spoken language, I’m downright tyrannical when it comes to usage and punctuation in writing³ (don’t even get me started on everyday vs. every day⁴).

So I had the title, but was it worth starting a blog? People had asked why I didn’t have a blog, and I had my excuses for not blogging:

1. I can’t figure out how to make this Internet-thingy work. (Damn, I knew nobody would buy that one.)
2. I don’t have time. (But you have time to play 12 games of Minesweeper? An hour?)
3. Everyone else is doing it. (Like that stopped you from becoming obsessed with the Harry Potter books?) (HEY, Skeptical⁵ Voice, that was before they became a huge fad. Plus, I hated The Da Vinci Code.)

In fact, my main qualm about starting a blog (or after July 27, a public blog) was that I didn’t think I’d have much of interest to write about. But fear not—I promise to do my best not to bore you with tiresome posts about extremely uninteresting things such as my life. Rather, I hope this will be a space for choicier morsels: obscure facts and knowledge, links to and commentary on good (or bad) articles,⁶ even an occasional Rant (whether on programming, pronouns, or politics).

However, I cannot pledge to post on a daily or even weekly basis. In fact, I probably should promise NOT to update this regularly.⁷

Below you will find a few earlier posts of some natterings; they should give you a rough idea of what to expect. Feel free to use the comments to make fun of what I write, share interesting tidbits of your own, and call to my attention any mispellings or errors⁸ so as to spare other readers of the painful, instinctive reaction that you are no doubt experiencing right now if you are one of us Sticklers (to borrow the term from Lynne Truss, who, in Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, describes this sort of reaction as “a ghastly private emotional process similar to the stages of bereavement, though greatly accelerated”). If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I envy you.

Lastly, a couple of Housekeeping Items:

Assuming I know who you are, email me the URL of your blog so I can link to it.

In case you’re confused, hover your mouse over the superscript numbers to see snarky asides.⁹

In case you were wondering, the dates on entries are in Pacific Time.

Enjoy.