General linguistic ignorance?

[Valosken]

I don't know whether or not I'm the only one, so...

Does anybody else find people in general have a great confidence in their knowledge of language, despite knowing almost nothing, annoying?

[Click]

Yes. That's one reason I avoid most of discussions about Croatian and Serbian if a considerable part of the said discussion is written by either Croats of Serbs.

[Ear of the Sphinx]

The prescriptivism annoys me all the time.

[cybrxkhan]

Does anybody else find people in general have a great confidence in their knowledge of language, despite knowing almost nothing, annoying?

To be honest, this is true for any subject, be it linguistics, history, anthropology/culture, biology, physics, religion, atheism, Mongolian cuisine, BSDM, whatever.

The prescriptivism annoys me all the time.

Indeed!

[Xonen]

Does anybody else find people in general have a great confidence in their knowledge of language, despite knowing almost nothing, annoying?

To be honest, this is true for any subject, be it linguistics, history, anthropology/culture, biology, physics, religion, atheism, Mongolian cuisine, BSDM, whatever.

Very true. It's actually a fairly well-known phenomenon, which has even been studied scientifically (see Wikipedia for starters). Roughly put, the less people know about a subject, the more likely they are to overestimate their own knowledge. And, at least IME, to consider it their god-given duty to educate everyone else.

[xinda]

Also, for normal people, language doesn't really have too many well known 'experts' to which people can compare their knowledge. While you might think you are good at cooking, you are still competing with celebrity chefs whose prowess is more widely accepted. Without these bounds, people talking about language will overstate their knowledge about it.

[Lambuzhao]

I could be guilty as charged, @ certain moments. Forgive me if I came off like that.
I make an effort to be open-minded about most things.


Best rule of thumb is be prepared to admit this (learned in Post-Bac Classical Studies):

ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα
scio me nescire
I know that I do not know
- Socrates


Corrollary 1-
知不知，尚矣。不知知，病矣。
zhī bù zhī shàng yǐ. bù zhī zhī bìng yǐ.
To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease -- Lao Tsu


Corrollary 2-
OMNISCIENCE
Knowing what
thou knowest not
is in a sense
omniscience

A grook by Piet Hein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grook

Corrollary 3:

THE ROAD TO WISDOM?
Well, it's plain
and simple to express.
Err and err and err again,
but less and less and less.

[Systemzwang]

I am fascinated by widespread ignorance about a topic among hobbyists whose hobbies are related to the topic, e.g. ignorance about linguistics among conlangers is a good example of that, and more common than most of us like to admit. I do guess on average we're more knowledgeable, yet important stuff seems to pass us by as well.

Then again, even people who educate people on being rational get these things wrong, I've been finding mistakes in stuff I know something about (linguistics, judaistics) in sceptic/rationalist James Randi's stuff. Nothing particularly bad, but ... and I imagine there might be an intention behind it, but that might just be me trying to come up with excuses since I do respect the man a lot.

[Ànradh]

I tend to find it's only annoying when said person doesn't accept corrections.
I know that when I have something wrong, I'd like for it to be fixed so I don't continue to appear an idiot in future conversations, so I can't understand when people get pissy about me trying to help them...

I imagine I'm the annoying one quite often though. I'm an 'informed layman' in a lot of different topics many people consider highly technical and complicated, thus they assume I'm much more knowledgeable than I am as they can’t see where the gaps in my information are. So, when I meet somebody who has actually studied such a subject properly, I imagine they'd find me highly ignorant (probably not helped by the fact that my interest will lead me to pestering them too.)

[hadad]

People are in general, ignorant. Most people are ignorant about most things and simply don't care. That's why I prefer to be in my own little world. Being introverted lets me be me and not have to deal with them.

Though you gotta love grammar nazis, they tend to be the worst when it comes to linguistic ignorance. As ironic as that may seem. Though it makes sense, those who think they know everything, actually know nothing.

I know that I am ignorant about most things, I just know what I know, based on the knowledge I've had. I'm interested in learning more about history, physics, linguistics, anthropology, history, and alot of intellectual subjects. About sports? I'm ignorant as fuck! But I'm glad and don't care to know more.

[Lambuzhao]

Roughly put, the less people know about a subject, the more likely they are to overestimate their own knowledge.

Socrates would've called that person a "Sophist".

And, at least IME, to consider it their god-given duty to educate everyone else.

Ironically, Socrates found out that the Delphi Oracle said none was wiser than him.
So, he took it upon himself as a god-given duty to disprove the oracle by seeking out those famous for being wise. Through his unbeatable verbal art known as the dialectic, he surpassed all so-called "wise" folk.

Hmm...

[Xing]

Natural human language is something people encounter on a daily basis, and therefore its not surprising that many people will have strong opinions about it. Whether they know anything about it or not... Some subject, on the other hand, may be more obscure to laypeople, those who don't know anything about such subjects simply don't care.

It's often advisable that those of us who are more knowledgeable show some patience. Ignorance is, after all, the "natural" state for human beings. People might, however, be more or less receptive to instruction. Some people might be more prone to jump to conclusions and reject new information that challenges what they have previously believed.

One thing, that I suspect could be problem in some cases, is that many hobbyists are autodidacts. Without constant corrections from a teacher, the autodidact may believe he understands some topic, while he in fact misunderstands it in various ways. How serious this problem is probably different from person to person; and many self-educated people might doubtlessly be very knowledgeable about their subject. But I think it might be something to be aware of.

[Valosken]

I definitely agree with that, Xing.

[Lambuzhao]

Without constant corrections from a teacher, the autodidact may believe he understands some topic, while he in fact misunderstands it in various ways.

Indeed. Nothing beats getting beatenerm corrected by a teacher.
And some of us had some pretty good ones. Whether or not we were good students, however...

[atman]

Whether or not we were good students, however...

Most definitely I wasn't. A couple of math teachers of mine would have liked to eat me alive...

[Thrice Xandvii]

Teachers who didn't like to be challenged during class didn't like me. Unfortunately, that was how I learned best: by beating a topic into submission from all sides. And that was impossible unless I understood the whys and hows of it... as well as the why nots. Some teachers, especially in High School, were not fond of me asking them how they knew something or why it worked that way. They just wanted to spoon feed us info and move on. *sigh*

The good teachers though... they loved that I approached learning as a problem that needed to be conquered, not just rote memorization of useless information.

As for linguistics in general? I am 100% self-taught (aside from the tangental learning that occurred in my various English and Spanish classes over the years). As such, I often have no idea how little I know until I find a thread here with some of the folks discussing things I have never heard of. In a way, I am glad to be disabused of the notion that I know a great deal about languages. It has been fun to learn more. Maybe I can audit a course at one of the local colleges? Hmmmm....

[Prinsessa]

Indeed. Being "corrected" by a teacher isn't always necessarily a good thing, because a lot of them really do blindly follow specific schemes and rules, and seem to have no ability to reason on their own. They seem to have no knowledge of the details. They seem to be lacking a lot of knowledge about things that are correct, but not common, or not conventional, and therefore use the authority of their position to make the student look like an idiot in order to try to cover up the holes in their own knowledge and not to be ridiculed in front of the class. Teachers that have way too much pride and way too little actual knowledge. Lacking, or too specific and small, passion for the subject. Fittingly, for these fora, language teachers by far seem to be guilty of this more commonly than any other teachers.

[rickardspaghetti]

It sounds like you've had experience with these kinds of teachers, Sko.

[Valosken]

When I pointed out in German that the conditional isn't a tense, and that there's no such thing as a "possessive adjective", the teacher did exactly the things Sko describes. ¬.¬

[Prinsessa]

It sounds like you've had experience with these kinds of teachers, Sko.

I've recently spoken to others who have too, so that's what made me think of it. On the other hand, I've had great experiences with other teachers too, very knowledgeable about their subject, and happy to see someone having some well-founded fun with it as well, encouraging it, and helping out with the holes that were still present in my own knowledge. Teachers that have seemed equally passionate about their work, and not just going there every day to earn money and stay alive, hating their job, and not really possessing the knowledge that they should in order to be perfectly suited for it.

Reminds me that my old classmate and I need to set up that reunion and invite one of these teachers (who was head of our class). I miss that guy.