Big Sigh of Relief

I'm starting a graduate program in linguistics one month from tomorrow. As most of you know, I did my undergraduate in English, which is a little bit different. And since it's been awhile since I took a linguistics class--or any class for that matter--I decided I might want to study up a little before school.

So back in about May, I pulled out all my old linguistics books and decided to start reviewing the textbook from one of my favorite courses, History of the English Language. The book is called A Biography of the English Language by C M Millward.

Now the author's name, "Millward," should have tipped me off to something because Millward just sounds like a really old, stuffy-type linguist, the kind with the monotone voice, she probably has the same haircut she wore in the sixties. Millward is also probably socially awkward since she spent all her time alone in her room studying runes and Old English pronunciation. She has probably read Beowulf aloud. To herself.

And to others--which is worse.

(There are actually a lot of "interesting" people in the linguistics world, and sometimes when I meet them, I question whether I really belong in this field. So much more comfortable with the English crowd.)

Now if I didn't take a hint from the author's name, I should have at least noticed the pale, split-pea-soup cover of the book. It doesn't exactly scream, "Read me! I'm fun!" (I would post an actual picture of the book here, but you would fall asleep looking at it.) Inside the book there are about five maps/diagrams and the rest is text. No pictures. No color. Just big chunks of text. Text that goes on and on and on forever.

I tried really hard to read A Biography of the English Language, but, frankly, I was bored out of my mind. And I had no idea what it was talking about. And I quit reading it, and ignored my linguistics studying for awhile.

But I was a little concerned about the fact that I am starting a graduate program in linguistics and the linguistics book I tried to read was pretty much death. I mean it would be at least slightly inconvenient to finally start graduate school and discover I don't even like subject.

However, a few months after my failed reading attempts, when the book was buried deep under a pile of clean/dirty clothes, I remembered a very important fact from my History of the English Language class: We didn't use the book.

We had the book, but we didn't actually use it very often. Our assignments and tests were lecture-based, and the lectures were really interesting.

With that wonderful idea in mind, I pulled out a different linguistics textbook earlier this week. Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication. This textbook has not one, but four authors, all with interesting, or at least normal-person-sounding names like Adrian Akmajian and Ann K Farmer. I could be friends with them. The cover is bright yellow with blue and yellow designs on it. It's a pretty happy textbook. Many graphs and diagrams, some of which could almost be considered pictures. Still no color inside, but the brightness of the cover makes up for it.

And the really good news:

I started reading the book, and I love it. Chapter 2, "Morphology," is so fascinating. I'm actually looking forward to the exercises at the end of the chapter. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do awesome on them because I totally get this stuff. I'm actually registered for a morphology class this fall, and now I really excited for it.

So I really do like linguistics, and I really can study linguistics in graduate school.

Good to know.