What’s a PhD in Linguistics good for? Setting people straight, for one thing.
Belligerent white woman: Could you get of the way?
Black teen: I be trying!
Belligerent white woman: You should speak gramatically correctly!
Smartass: “I be trying” isn’t ungrammatical. It’s standard usage in African-American vernacular English.
Belligerent white woman: Oh, what would you know?
Smartass: I have a Ph.D. in linguistics from MIT.
Ooh, snap!
5 August 2006 at 8:02 pm
I don’t do anyhting with mine (in a different subject) except:
– remind me that I cannot be totally stupid although I systematically do not understand political articles in the newspapers;
– earn my living with very little effort.