Languager

There's a scene in Rick and Morty (a show I started watching far too late) in which the term "languager" is used. That's how I like to think of myself: as a person who languages.

An alternative to this is "language expert". That's what my friends and I call ourselves (with at least 80 percent irony). Can we really call ourselves experts in anything? For now, "languager" fits me best.

For this languager, language is everything. It not only shapes our understanding of the world, it constructs our world. It is the thing that makes us human, to our benefit as well as our detriment. It draws borders, it categorizes, it indexes. It forms and destroys communities. It constructs identities. It is, to my mind, pretty much everything.

Language will be a very important factor in this blog's content. As I was writing the above paragraph, I was laughing with a friend about how impossible it is to talk about things without using the jargon of our field. I'm pretty sure some people find us insufferable for that reason.

It's worth it.