Sunday 20 January 2013

The Horror of Linguistics

I didn't go into my Linguistics classes expecting very much. Study of language and what-not. 101 is how we pronounce things. 102 is how we develop language. In all honestly 102 doesn't sound all that different than Child Developmental Psychology (and so far, it isn't).

But things started to sound, odd. It felt odd learning about consonants and vowels. Everyone sat in class making different noises with varying tongue placements and lip shapes. And then the lecturer (who is actually just a grad student) shows us this gem to better teach us the sound of things:

http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/ipa/consonants.html

I'm sorry, I can't listen to these without thinking of Nigel Thornberry.

SMASHING.

Not entirely convinced? Don't know who Nigel Thornberry is? Watch a few videos of the man talk, imagine the above link in his accent (and with some consonants you don't need to) and don't tell me you don't hear the same thing.


It could very well be that I'm going crazy, and hearing things I shouldn't be. I wouldn't doubt it if that was a side effect of sleep deprivation. But this isn't so bad, until you realize that in order to study for exams I need to practice making these noises. It'll help me write words in their phonetic form or something.

So imagine you're a parent. It's the middle of the night and you wake up because you hear this nonsensical gibberish coming from your kid's room. You open the door and he's hunched over a book with weird symbols. And he's writing out those weird symbols too.

As if my parents don't think I'm crazy enough already.



But Ling 101 isn't even the worst offender. I'd rather sit in class and listen to Nigel Thornberry all day then listen to the videos we watch in Linguistics 102. I have to ask a question, when did babies become so horrifying? I know they're little poop machine but listening to one try and talk is disturbing.


All the women (aka 95%) of the class were cooing and giggling at this video. I sat rigid in my desk, more disturbed than I had ever been in years. I'm not sure what my female readers will think of this video but maybe it's a gender thing? Maybe I'm just crazy and I hate small children more than I originally thought?

And then we watched another similar video. And another. And then a video of a mother cooing over her baby.

This class is way worse than Child Developmental psychology. At least I learned something in that course. To be fair, a lot of the stuff we've learned so far is mostly review for me but still, I didn't pay a couple thousand dollars to watch videos of babies drooling over themselves.

Money not well spent.

I hope the course gets better. If not, I hope it's an easy A. Maybe then I can justify sitting around and listening to weird noises for several hours a day.

26 comments:

  1. Weird noises is really good. Especially if you want to scare the crap out of those little fuckers. In my case it doesn't work well because those kids think I'm 'Queen' and start cheering me.

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  2. i never enjoyed my linguistic classes. i preferred literature.

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  3. Those do sound like Nigel Thornberry, you aren't just going crazy. I love that dude's accent so much too. I'm British but even I've never heard anything like that. The first course doesn't sound too bad, you're actually learning stuff. The second...yeah, what's up with that? Hopefully things will pick up but watching endless videos of babies trying to talk is hardly my idea of a good education. I also find them horrifying at times. Maybe it is a gender thing.

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  4. LOL, give yourself a few years...maybe the baby babbling will grow on you!

    PS...yes, you can brown the meringue in the oven, but there's a higher chance of melting the ice cream :)

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  5. all the best in ur study la :D

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  6. Oh, I'd probably die at such a class too... I'm not a fan of little babies... not that I hate them like you :P, but I don't go crazy over them like some ladies do

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  7. Just wait til it's your own baby. Then every burp, fart and noise will be adorable.

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  8. So I went to that site and tried clicking a few consonants. It was slow to load. So I kept clicking and clicking and finally they all went at once. It sounded like a Nigel Thornberry motorcycle. Bram brahhh bram braaaa. Try it. It's pretty amusing.

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  9. Don't know if I could handle that. I mean I make weird noises with the cat, but a whole course with people annoying me, no thanks, good luck with that.

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  10. Hey! Glad to say that i'm very much alive and currently on work. Darn! We're still waiting for our last guest for tonight to go home =[

    Anyway, lol! All i can remember about this podt was my japanese class. Haha! It was actually fun thu my teacher was a lil weird.

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  11. I'm sorry man, I found the baby talk hilarious. I thought I was gonna be scared, but I couldn't stop myself from enjoying it. I tried.

    Also, that consonants site? I got a real kick out of the plosive uvular q. I hit it one time over the other and made the guy say some nasty stuff. This is fun. Lol

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  12. Awww... sorry, but the video of the baby is pretty cute (I admit to having a female bias). But I sure hope the class picks up for you! Usually they start out with this basic stuff, right? Hopefully the material will get more advanced over the next few weeks...

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  13. I've never really watched the Wild Thornberrys for some reason but I know the voice and I don't think that you're crazy Damien, he sounds like Nigel Thornberry to me as well!

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  14. Too funny! I remember well the days of taking college courses that were of little relevence to me!

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  15. What you need is a few lessons from the master... me. Enough said.

    But seriously, Damian, linguistics is more likely to be boring than interesting. I blame your teachers. It also depends on the kind of linguistics we're talking. Psycholinguistics is so much more interesting than syntax.

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  16. Some of us can't stand babies and don't feel guilty about it ;) You're not alone!

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  17. Both of these classes sound frustrating. Im not a fan of babies either. and im pretty sure the baby in that video is some sort of alien creature

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  18. I felt the same way in my public speaking class. We had to pronounce the words the way you are suppose to. We had to do these silly exercises and the teacher was hardcore into it like it was all she did.

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  19. Kind of glad you wrote about this, as this was a class I'd always kind of wanted to take.
    Now? Not so much.

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  20. Heaven help me, I know exactly who Nigel Thornberry is.
    I also know the names of the Powerpuff Girls, can sing the theme to Sponge Bob, argue why the Rugrats parents should be locked up for child abuse, and wonder how CatDog poops.
    Yes, I'm a parent.
    A parent who is glad English is his native language.
    That language is a sure bitch kitty.
    'Knight' sounds like 'night.' More than one 'moose' is 'moose' yet more than one 'goose' is 'geese.' I could go on, but to sum up...
    Yep. It sucks.

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  21. I'll second Debra's comment - but that being said, I can honestly say I have never found other children (other than my own, lol) cute :D So don't feel bad!

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  22. The video made me laugh. I don't know what she was saying but she had a lot to say and she was pretty serious about it.

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  23. Babies are cute..
    But yeah sometimes its hard to tackle them.
    Video was cool :D

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  24. Oh boy I wanna smack that baby!! Sorry but wow does she ever stop going on!

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  25. Ok that link to the guy pronouncing stuff...to me it sounds like a baritone orgasm...every time..ewww

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