In an effort to attract more talent to the august profession of Linguistics, the X. Quizzit Korps Center for Advanced Collaborative Studies has commissioned a unique survey into the reasons why professional linguists have chosen their career. It is out hope that these will serve to inspire future generations.
“Being an unprofessional linguist just didn’t hold much fascination for me anymore.”
—BB, Norfolk, England
“I wanted to be able to sling around enormous Greco-
—Yergin Zeetstruper, Phlinphlann, Massachusetts
“It was the voices.. the voices in my head and the light from the mailbox...”
—GE, Casa de Tranquilidad y Merced para los Enfermitos, Guayaquil, Ecuador
“To investigate the mysteries of the human condition by applied generative psycho-
—DXQGF, Université de Grands Mots, Paris, France
“I believe that linguistics has afforded me, more than any other intellectual endeavor, a broadness of mind and a concomitant delicate and discerning cognitive palate. Linguistics sensitizes one to language and to Language, one’s own as well as that of others. It encourages an appreciation of languages that leads to a love of literatures that are not native to one’s mother tongue. This is the transmogrification linguistics has wrought on my soul. No, wait, I was thinking of philology. Never mind.”
—TJ, Washington, DC.
“No one was going to believe that I’m genetically incapable of trilling an [r] unless I had a degree backing me up.”
—Harvey Stoann, East Belfast, Northern Ireland
“I got into linguistics for many of the standard reasons: money, power, social approval, personal satisfaction, self-
—Wage Slave McJobsalot, Downward Spiral, Missouri
“Linguistics chicks are hot.”
—DD, University of California, Berkeley, California
“For me, it was the recruitment posters in the post office. You know, go to exotic foreign locations, meet members of other cultures, and force their languages to conform to UG, all while fighting global lexicalism.”
—Conjunct-
“I always wanted to find a job where you listen to strange noises and enter them into a computer all day.”
—GG, Hartwood, Scotland
“Hoots mon, ‘twas yon whisky, twa Buckies and a battered Mars Bar that did it fir me, richt!”
—KMcF, McNeds Institute of Esoteric Linguistics, Scotland
“No one else would hire me.”
—FR, Elementary Semiotics Institute, University of Aux, France
“The glamour, the fans and the free conference dinners.”
—GX, Centre of Psychotic Linguistics, University of Neurosis, Alabama
“I knew that on the day that the entire world kneels before the might of the Metatactic Subjunction Engine, I wanted to be sure it was my maniacal laughter accompanying the list of demands.”
—Dr. Otto Von Nopersen, Vrangspoefel, Latveria.