What do you do with linguistics?

After college?

Mhmm.

You teach linguistics.

Okay, if I was taking a class in linguistics from you what would I be learning about?

The various parts of sentences and words and how words are formed, like prefixes and suffixes and syllables. And … prescriptive and descriptive grammar, and then grammar that’s used maybe in like a ghetto or something. They have grammar; it’s just not the grammar you learn in school.

So kind of like slang?

Mhmm.

What’s your favorite slang word?

Good question. I don’t know! I don’t know that I can answer that, I can’t think of enough right now.

Is there a difference between slang and lingo?

Um, yes. I think slang, to me, has a certain connotation, like a negative connotation. Kind of like an offensive word perhaps. Where lingo is, I think, generally more like a shortened term.

I’m going to try to recall some memory I have of linguistics. I remember subject and predicate, is that correct?

Mhmm.

Okay. And that’s it. Hmm … so why are you interested in linguistics?

It’s just a really – I don’t know – I really like putting sentences into trees, It’s like really organized and you can –

Wait. Sentences into trees?

Yeah, you put ’em, kinda like, y’know a number into a tree of its primaries or whatever?