Linguistic (Fight) Clubs

Tyler D. Urden and Thé N. Arrator
X. Quizzit Korps Center for Advanced Collaborative Studies

The enduring legacy of the fin-de-xx^e-siècle film Fight Club includes many pale imitators. Among the humanities—including linguistics and related fields—the imitators can be quite pale, and pasty and soft to boot. Even these faint and frail shadows of the cult classic cannot fail to limn its most quintessential icon: the first rule of Fight Club (of which we need speak no further).

Below are the collected first rules of various Clubs of the Linguistical and Linguistically-Adjacent variety, gathered over nearly two decades by our dedicated team of graduate students, led by Marla S. Inger, who also organized a grad student support group.

• The first rule of Introduction to Linguistics Instructors’ Club is that it doesn’t matter how many ways you explain the phoneme.

• The first rule of Phonetics Club is [ˈɪɾɪzðɨˈpʰɹɔːvn̩t͜sɨvˈnɔlɨd͜ʒtʰɨˈspiʲkʰ(.)æ̃ˈnɪɾɪzðɨˈpʰɹɪvl̩ɪd͜ʒɨvˈwɪzdm̩tɨˈlɪsn̩].

• The first rule of Phonology Club is feeding, then bleeding.

• The first rule of Experimental Phonetics Club is that technically shoving anything in someone’s mouth can be science if you lie on the ethics form.

• The first rule of Syntax Club is that what it means is someone else’s job, not ours.

• The first rule of Grammaticality Judgment Club is that if you don’t call out my weird judgements, I won’t call out yours, capisce?

• The first rule of Generative Linguistics Club is that you already know the rules from birth.

• The first rule of Historical Linguistics Club is not to take exception to young grammarians.

• The first rule of Philology Club is best understood by examining its historical context and comparing it to the other rules of Philology Club and the first rules of closely related clubs.

• The first rule of Typology Club shows a broad structural similarity to the rules of other clubs.

• The first rule of Computational Linguistics Club is that computers are better at language than humans.

• The first rule of Recursion Club is that any construction can be embedded within another construction embedded within a further construction, and the whole thereof can be embedded within the original construction itself.

• The first rule of Field Linguistics Club is that all the interesting languages are spoken in countries with nice beaches.

• The first rule of Proto-Indo-European Club is that, hey, all the speakers are long dead so no one can ever say you are wrong.

• The first rule of Altaic Club is “Always a borrower and a lender be.”

• The first rule of Indo-Iranian Studies Club is one man’s Mede is another man’s Persian.

• The first rule of Esperanto Club is “En la mondon venis nova sento.”

• The first rule of Child Language Acquisition Club is googah!

• The first rule of Interpreting Studies Club is don’t worry, you can always borrow a method from another field.

• The first rule of Literary Linguistics Club is that you never talk about the job prospects of being a member of Literary Linguistics Club.

• The first rule of Post-Colonial Club is that rules are an imperialist imposition. (No one ever expects the imperialist imposition).

• The first rule of Post-Modernism Club is that all rules are relative.

• The first rule of Pragmatics Club should be clear from context.

• The first rule of Semiotics Club is that no one has a clue what Semiotics Club is actually about.

• The first rule of Sociolinguistics Club is middle-class women and teenagers first.

• The first rule of Structuralism Club can only be defined by being placed in contrast with other rules of Structuralism Club.

• The first rule of Non-Sequitur Club is a tap-dancing herring.

• The first rule of Redundancy Club is the first rule of Redundancy Club.

• The first rule of Snowclone Club is that “The first rule of Snowclone Club is X.”

• The first rule of Wikipedia Club is ^{[citation needed] [doubtful]}.

• The first rule of SpecGram Club is that you have always made a mistake somewhere and a comma won’t fix it.

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