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From: Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Wry or self-deprecating quotes about linguistics
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2024 08:41:11 +0100
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 Ar an t-ochtú lá déag de mí Lúnasa, scríobh Tristan Miller: 

 > Samuel Johnson famously defined a lexicographer as "a harmless drudge". Have
 > any other lexicographers or linguists made similarly self-deprecating
 > statements about their profession? (I tried some web searches but came up
 > empty-handed; ChatGPT provided some real zingers from the likes of Ferdinand
 > de Saussure, Noam Chomsky, and David Crystal, alas all hallucinated.)

Part of the difficulty with this is that Chomsky and e.g. Boas have and had
egos the size of North America. I do think one needs a robust self-confidence
to be good in the field, above and beyond what those around you would support,
something which will not make people quick to self-deprecation.

-- 
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)