I’ve enjoyed being a spectator to the flame was between the Language Log and the Freakanomics blog this week – alright, so it hasn’t quite risen to the level of a flame war, but it has been entertaining, even if both sides have been friendly and good-humored about the whole affair.
It started when Stephen J. Dubner from Freakanomics came across a semantics abstract while googling for “They Might be Giants” and “bellybutton lint.” Unfamiliar with the terms of art from the linguistics community, he took author David Beaver to task for obfuscation and a veiled swipe at the field of linguistics, suggesting that such research, while amusing, doesn’t amount to much.
Well, someone tipped off David Beaver to the blog post and he responded on the Language Log, after which Dubner concedes defeat (imho).
I mean, really: who hasn't read Karttunen?
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