Linguistics porn

Oh, Lor-r-d… Not linguistics too.

On NPR, I just heard a report -- well, as much of it as I could stand, before projectile vomiting intervened -- about some freak who presumes to explain the Greek debt crisis on the basis of linguistics: specifically, the encoding of the future tense in various languages.

Absurdity piled on misanalysis and I turned the thing off.  And if this story dies, there’s an end to it:  I’ll be relieved of the burden of having (prouesse oblige) to swab out that particular septic-tank.  Meanwhile, the takeaway:  It’s garbage.

As a prophylactic against any future such claims, bear in mind this simple example.  Consider the position of women in Iran; and know that Farsi has gender-neutral pronouns (the same word goes for ‘he/she', or for ‘his/her’).

~

[Update 9 May 2012]  Good news twice over.

(1) The story died.

(2) It is our pleasure to salute an excellent article by a non-linguist, on English usage -- a subject that tends to attract cranks.  By Joan Acocella, in the current issue of The New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/05/14/120514crbo_books_acocella

Liltingly written;  level-headed (nay more:  keen-minded) -- and even:  funny.  And at times, of almost Biblical eloquence.

[Update 1 June 2012]  Hm, well, the ever-alert Steven Pinker thinks her article is linguistics porn as well. U B the judge:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_good_word/2012/05/steven_pinker_on_the_false_fronts_in_the_language_wars_.single.html

[Update 21 May 2012] A useful contribution by the ever-trenchant Geoff Pullum,
dissecting George Will's disinformation about President Obama's pronoun patterns:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2012/05/15/lying-about-language/

 Another carefuly analysis of a linguistic fraud, this one by the classicist Keith Massey:
http://magnaliadei.blogspot.com/2012/05/bonds-of-brothers.html
Once a fabrication gets into the informational bloodstream, there is no scrubbing it completely, as H.L. Mencken proved decades ago with his "Bathtub Hoax".  But in the case of these falsifiers, their lies have wings, and grow grander, since there are ideologues with an interest in keeping the scam going.

For fun:
http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/11/korean-elephant-speaks-all-languages.html