Linguist Letterception

a road map of too many letters

An Open Letter to the LSA

The original letter requesting that the LSA formally remove Steven Pinker from its list of distinguished fellows and, importantly, media representatives: tinyurl.com/lsaletter

Steven Pinker responds

In a few brief threads (1, 2, and from John McWhorter, 3), Pinker responds condescendingly, initiating abuse from his fanatical troll base.

In addition, reports appear of private conversations on Facebook escalate, resulting in some hurtful remarks directed at signatories and some exaggerated claims of oppression from non-signatories.

Partee, Pesetsky, and Jacobson

Barbara Partee, and then Pauline Jacobson, David Pesetsky, and Barbara Partee (image below) wrote letters to explain their points of view, which appear to conflict with TOL but not to the extent of Pinker and McWhorter's tweets.

Adger and Ramchand

In two separate posts, David Adger and Gillian Ramchand explain their points of view and their reasons for signing TOL, now in the context of the Harper's Letter as well. These are explicitly supportive of the original letter-writers and signatories, and decry the exaggerated claims of "cancel culture gone too far".

The LSA emails its membership

In an email to its entire membership, the LSA attempts to address TOL with vague gestures to freedom of speech and support of conflicting viewpoints, but without acknowledging the letter or its signatories.

Pinker gloats

Pinker sees the LSA's email as an indication that they support him and denounce the signatories.

This leads to a number of posts that will not be linked to here that claim to "take down" the LSA letter.

Borer responds

Hagit Borer writes a compelling analysis of what the (well-intentioned) JPP letter does that creates a hurtful effect within the linguistics community, on top of why TOL was a reasonable first step.

Esipova, Green, and others

Posts from Maria Esipova and from Caitlin Moriah Green provide additional support for The Original Letter as well as express frustration with the closed and insular nature of the JPP letter and with the disingenuous takes and attacks by trolls and linguists alike.

Along with additional blog-length responses, a good deal of conversation happened in public and private on Twitter and Facebook.

Todd Snider compiled a general timeline, from which this road map is adapted.

Cassandra Jacobs wrote a follow-up criticizing the brown-nosing linguists aligning with the 'old guard'.

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