The Lousy Linguist is a baritone.

That is my guess. But as far his literary voice goes, I think he's incredibly funny while still being so academic and informative. He really knows how to use his words. Not surprising, as he's a linguist (a "lousy" one) who specializes in syntax and semantics. His posts range from discussing the meanings of specific words ("think" vs "believe", "call"), to discussing things he's come across (little xkcd comics, Stephen Colbert...) of relevance to the world of linguistics. Thus, his voice may range from more academic, to more casual and critical. And he's not at all afraid to state his opinions and to pick sides (or let us know what side he's already on, I suppose). My favorites of his posts have to be the ones critical of Andrew Sullivan, blogger of The Daily Dish. Why do I like these posts the most? For that matter, why am I even blogging about this site, seeing as how its main topics are syntax and semantics, and not Bible translation?

Bible translation from the original languages to another, whether English or, let's say, Nyungwe, is all about understanding the meaning of the original words in order to find, hopefully, equivalents in another language. That task itself requires an understanding of the language being translated into, and so understanding the syntax and semantics of that language is key because if there's confusion and/or disagreement regarding what some words actually mean, or how they should best be used, well... we'd be in trouble. Or shall I say that we are in trouble? But actually, we seem to be doing okay, as translations get updated and revised to change along with language.

And see, language is forever changing. It has to. There's a certain amount that we should try to regulate, I suppose, so that we can continue to understand each other cross generationally or something, but those that maintain that rules are rules are rules... That is not language. We've got to be flexible because people, society, change. Prescriptivism is about prescribing the rules for language. Descriptivism is about describing the way language is spoken. The Lousy Linguist is a descriptivist while Sullivan is a prescriptivist.

So part of why I like this Lousy Linguist's posts regarding Sullivan is his ability to critique so humorously without lacking substance: reason and credibility. His character is one that loves the English language the way it is used by the masses (he often Googles specific word phrases to check the popularity and usage of it). He loves his area of study and he is offended when others disregard it. Someone who loves linguistics so much really lets himself shine when he comes to defend the subject of study itself and his point of view (check out: Dissin' Linguists and Deer Meat & Semantic Narrowing--and now I know: rhetorical questions are very useful. I'll have to look into that).

Back to what I glossed over in my opening paragraph about The Lousy Linguist's posts: what I like most about his voice is that he writes with honesty, not afraid to to invite opposition, and certainly not stating that his opinions and thoughts are fact (all while still being fairly academic). He doesn't impose his thoughts on others who differ (though he may directly address them: "Andrew Sullivan! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! Take a frikkin linguistics course! Ugh!") The fact that he blogs all of this down communicates to me that he just needs to collect his thoughts and perhaps share them along the way. He lets himself freely think this way in "Words and Meaning":

I could be wrong about this, but my hunch is that the human language system takes all written representations of language and converts them into an internal mental representation it’s happy with...but I don’t see any reason to believe that the internal semantic representation of kanji is somehow different than the representation of words. (emphasis added)

and in discussing MIT linguist Pinker:

I have mixed feelings about Pinker. I admire his contribution to psycholinguistics, even while disagreeing with some of his major conclusions. ...But of late, he seems to have jumped off the deep end of rationality and come to the conclusion that his opinions and intuition are more than that; they are now fact. I think we would all be better off if Pinker got off the lecture circuit and back into the lab and started studying verbs again.

Oh, if we could all be truly free to blog as we wish like The Lousy Linguist. To feel fine and unburdened as we talk about what we want to talk about, and to feel fine and unburdened to not talk about what we don't want to talk about. I mean, we could--I could--I guess I'm not personally quite at that step yet. Yeah, I don't think I'm as verbally opinionated to any old person (especially out there in the interwebs) as some people.

--kowai-kawaii