What's amazing to learn as a grad student/junior academic in humanities conferences is the way in which long-winded questions and answers can actually mask emotions that could and would lead to fistfights in other venues.
I have some duelling letters from two linguists arguing over obscure points of pronunciation in Tolkien's invented languages (should the vowels and or syllables be pronouned following the rules in sources languages such as Finnish or Welsh or should one follow Tolkien's rules because apparently if one goes by the source languages, it's possible to find obscure dirty jokes which one linguist claims that Tolkien would never be so low as to commit).
I use it in courses to talk about academic discourses and styles of argument, but alas, I'm the only one who can see the humor!
Re: Feral fandom's champion
What's amazing to learn as a grad student/junior academic in humanities conferences is the way in which long-winded questions and answers can actually mask emotions that could and would lead to fistfights in other venues.
I have some duelling letters from two linguists arguing over obscure points of pronunciation in Tolkien's invented languages (should the vowels and or syllables be pronouned following the rules in sources languages such as Finnish or Welsh or should one follow Tolkien's rules because apparently if one goes by the source languages, it's possible to find obscure dirty jokes which one linguist claims that Tolkien would never be so low as to commit).
I use it in courses to talk about academic discourses and styles of argument, but alas, I'm the only one who can see the humor!