All Things Linguistic

18:30 16th Mar 2013

Notes: 33

Tags: linguistics protolinguist statistics graphs tumblinguists surveys

What does a protolinguist look like?

I ran a survey a few weeks ago for people interested in linguistics. Thanks to the 75 people who had responded as of the writing of this post (if you didn’t fill it out then, feel free to do so now here).

Here are some summary statistics for the data nerds among us. Many more graphs below the cut — click any graph to enlarge.

Current age ranges from 15 to 33, with clusters at 15-16, 18-20 and 21-24, plus a scattering of 25 and older.

I find it interesting that the age-at-first interest is somewhat bimodally distributed: there is an unsurprising peak at age 18, when I assume a lot of people stumble into intro linguistics classes, but there’s also a peak at age 15-16, and fairly high numbers at 13 and 14 as well. Maybe this is an age when people start reading nonfiction related to linguistics? (Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct, getting lost in wikipedia linguistics articles, etc).

19:20 3rd Jul 2012

Notes: 4

Tags: TIL charts endangered species funny graphs linguistics studies have shown teaspoons science

The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute

If you don’t think this study is relevant to linguistics, you clearly haven’t been to my department lounge. Click through for full article with fancy graphs showing teaspoon half life!

Objectives: To determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and displacement are correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom.

Design: Longitudinal cohort study.

Setting: Research institute employing about 140 people.

Subjects: 70 discreetly numbered teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute and observed weekly over five months.

Main outcome measures: Incidence of teaspoon loss per 100 teaspoon years and teaspoon half life.

Results: 56 (80%) of the 70 teaspoons disappeared during the study. The half life of the teaspoons was 81 days. The half life of teaspoons in communal tearooms (42 days) was significantly shorter than for those in rooms associated with particular research groups (77 days). The rate of loss was not influenced by the teaspoons’ value. The incidence of teaspoon loss over the period of observation was 360.62 per 100 teaspoon years. At this rate, an estimated 250 teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to maintain a practical institute-wide population of 70 teaspoons.

Conclusions: The loss of workplace teaspoons was rapid, showing that their availability, and hence office culture in general, is constantly threatened.