Linguist vs. Linguist

There's been an interesting exchange going on over at Anggarrgoon between that blog's author Claire and Steve Kaufmann of thelinguist.com (see the posts and comments here and here).  The discussion has to do, in part, with the distinction between two senses of the word linguist—one of which means 'a person who knows languages' and the other, 'a person who studies linguistics'.  Steve is a linguist(1), and doesn't seem to have much use for linguists(2).  Claire has been arguing that the two kinds of linguists aren't really that far removed, and that linguistics should also be of interest to linguists(1), but Steve doesn't seem convinced.  It's a linguist cage match!  (It might not be a fair fight, though, since Claire is both a linguist(1) and a linguist(2)—I think she has him surrounded.)

Comments

[Marcos]

I don't see any use for definition 1. What does that even mean, "a person who knows languages"? Everyone knows at least one. If you know more than one, you're a "polyglot", a.k.a. "statistically normal within the population of the planet" or "solidly in the minority in the USA"...

I think he's just trying to justify the domain. :)

[Claire]

Thanks! I'm not sure how we would score the rounds, though.

[Neal Whitman]

The funniest part is that Kaufmann seems to think that Claire is a man named Anggargoon.

[AJ]

Which one is black and which one white?

[KCinDC]

Neal, to be fair, there's no indication of Claire's name on the individual post pages, and her comments are preceded by "anggarrgoon says:". Not that that excuses any assumption of maleness.

[mike]

I'm always curious about what the various arguers think they'll be accomplishing. It's not as if, as a result of the discussion, one of the definitions is simply going to vanish. "Oh!" the English-speaking world at large will now say. "We didn't know that. Thanks for clarifying, and henceforth no one will use 'linguist' to mean 'polyglot.'"

AFAIcan see, the only thing that will happen is that one or the other of the arguers will "win" and ... uh, that'll be it. Nothing else will change ...

[language hat]

And what are you "accomplishing" with your comment? Not trying to be nasty, just suggesting that most communications are not made with the intent of accomplishing anything except the momentary satisfaction of the communicator.

[the Ridger]

Unfortunately, definition 1 is the older. Heck, it's a job title in the US armed forces ... as I should know. Linguists(2) brought it on themselves; they should have stuck with "philologists" as their field ;-) ... or "tonguewits" as someone (Bruce Nevin? I don't remember who now) once suggested in a discussion of this very point.

[The Tensor]

Unfortunately, definition 1 is the older...

Yeah, that's pretty much what I said (at greater length and with references) in my previous post on the subject, which is linked above on the word linguist. (BTW, I'm leaning more towards linguisticist these days.)

[ACW]

Let's ask this "linguistician"! She'll tell you that extraction is rarely unbounded ...