Linguistics on TV — Criminal Minds

Nuanced Impression: actually, plenty of linguists love etymology and do in fact recite word histories (as <a href="https://twitter.com/lynneguist/status/1282452969510903809" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Dr. Lynne Murphy</a> and others were quick to point out to me), but the way this is handled to introduce Dr. Blake makes her come across as condescending and belligerent. There’s no chance Dr. Blake actually thinks Penelope is using a 900 year old sense of “nice”. I get that they needed to establish her linguistics credibility right off the bat, but I think they could have handled this more generously. Especially frustrating because it reinforces the language police reputation that linguists hate so much. <a href="https://medium.com/@christopher.phipps/linguistics-on-tv-criminal-minds-58e0f85f93fc">Visit Now</a>