Self-promoting geekage

[philena]

I first noticed this when Daniel started commenting on its presence in his math-teacher accreditation progrem at Berkeley. It's the tendency of people who are a member of a fairly small, self-selecting group (of whatever degree of prestige) to say things like, "Oh, wow, I'm such a ___." For Daniel, it was of the "I love doing these types of math games. I'm such a math geek." The sort I hear the most often is a "Oh, wow, we're so UofC." (I can't possibly explain why that one in particular is so common.) But they come in all flavors. Star Trek is what I was guilty of back in high school. LOTR my first year or two here. I see it occasionally with language nerds, although normally it's not a pure linguistics type of self-classification so much as a sub-classification within linguistics. It'll show up in things like the following type of comment in class: "American Sign Language (my chosen field) does this and this and this and this. Isn't it neat? (Yeah, I'm such an ASL geek)." What makes this the more absurd is that it happens in phonetics class.* People who haven't specialized in any field tend not to be guilty of this in linguistics. And there are the ubiquitous comments of the types, "I bought sixteen different books this weekend. I'm such a nerd."

My point is as follows: It's annoying! I know it's tempting to comment on some tendency you see in yourself that you like and want other people to notice. I know it's tempting to want to point out a special interest or characteristic that differentiates you from other people. But, as Daniel pointed out, wouldn't it be more math-geeky of you simply to do the games and enjoy them rather than draw attention to yourself by claiming so vociferously that you like them? Wouldn't it be more specially ASL of you to wait for the appropriate point in a conversation and then drop in some obscure tidbit you know, where it will add something to the general discussion, rather than pounding people on the head with a topic that's not relevent except to promote your own esoteric brand of knowledge? And there are a LOT of people who like to read. If you want it to be clear that you are one of them, don't talk about how much you like to read. Talk about what you have actually read. If you can't do that, you won't fool anyone.



* See, ASL is a sign language. Phonetics is the study of the sounds of speech. ASL has no sounds. It is possible to talk about, for example, articulatory phonetics, because that is concerned with how the various signs are made with the articulators. For oral speech, the articulators are the tongue, teeth, lips, vocal folds, etc. For sign languages, the articulators are hands, arm, fingers. It's even possible to talk about the phonology of sign language, because the shape and movement of different signs will be influenced by which signs come before or after them, the same way various noises are influenced by the sounds that come before or after them. (Who says a full-out "t" in the middle of the word "button"? How about in the word "little"? See? (Daniel, you don't count.)) However, in oral speech, the articulators are hidden, and the results of their motion is evident not by sight, but by sounds. The sounds are formed by disturbances in the air, and these disturbances are measurable not only by what we hear, as human decoding machines, but also through studying the physical patterns of the wave forms by means of spectrograms and such. This is cool. This is hard physical evidence of properties of sounds, which can be added to the articulatory side of the question, giving us two completely different approaches to analyze the same process. (Then there's auditory phonetics, which discusses how the sounds are decoded by the listener, but I haven't done any work with that.) In sign languages, you don't have this. You only have the articulatory evidence to go on . I admit that it is a valid field to study the articulatory properties of sign languages, but it's not something you bring up in an introductory phonetics class. Not unless you're a complete nerd, and not even in a good way. If you were a nerd in a good way, you would do your own research and maybe offer a seminar or something to spread around this under-studied but valid area of inquiry. You do notwaste our wonderful professor's time by asking stupid questions about whether you can do your final project, which is largely designed to get us analyzing the various physical properties of speech using spectrograms and wave forms, on ASL!

Comments

[summercomfort]

but sometimes it's just how certain social groups work. For example, with my anime peeps, there's Jeremy who's a Ling geek with some knowledge of CompSci, Jono's a CompSci/Physics geek with some knowledge of Japanese, Cat's an Anth geek with some ling knowledge, and I'm a China geek with some CompSci/Ling interest... so we socialize by ranting about our interests, but the others listen in respect/awe. At least, that's one of the ways we socialize.

Plus, you must account for the scenerio where you are carried away by the thrill of the geeky topic, only to realize 15 minutes later that no one really wanted to hear about Manchu actions in western China. Then you make an apologetic "I guess I'm just a geek about that" and allow the conversation to return to normal.

[philena.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know that happens. But what about when you say merely, "Wow, that's so like Manchu actions in western China. Hehe, I'm such a geek." And then don't elaborate, thereby giving no evidence besides your own admission that you deserve the admittedly desireable moniker of geek? It's the lack of backup proof that you are a geek that bothers me. The ranting is fine. I've done it myself. Only it has to be real ranting.

[lavieparisienne.livejournal.com]

Now I'm worried I've been doing that. I honestly don't remember, but I wouldn't put it past me to be that annoying. If so, I apologize.

[philena.livejournal.com]

As far as I remember, you haven't. Breathe easy.