I was surprised to see the reference to Deborah Tannen, and it took me a second to realize that I had pitched her credentials to my dissertation committee back in the day. Her dissertation was a discourse analysis of the guests around her table for Thanksgiving. I was able to order it to my university’s inter library loan service, and I marveled at how “elegant” her research design was. She invited some friends and they agreed to be tape-recorded (literally), and she transcribed the script. I’m pretty sure that was her basic research strategy forever after.

If you’re looking for other writers who approach similar topics, the search term is “discourse analysis.”

I think he found a better fit in athletics.

Forty years ago, at a large, urban U.S. campus that shall remain nameless, I was a grad assistant who taught two classes back to back, so I kept the water in the office coffee pot hot while I was teaching my first class. Then I would refill my cup between classes and shut it off for the day, since everyone else was finished with classes. One day, I stopped in for the daily ritual, and someone had emptied the pot. I was just mad enough to do some investigation, and I discovered that the grad office next door (which didn’t have a coffee pot) had a new “grad assistant” move in at the beginning of the term. I found out that he slept on the couch in the office “a lot,” and no one knew his name. He was also known to be a user of our office’s coffee pot, so that was motivation enough for me to report him to the department office. It turned out that he had a mattress and some extra clothes (all of which were stereotypical academic costumes at the time) stashed in the attic of the building. Campus security removed him and his belongings.

A week later, I saw him on my way to the campus swimming pool. He was wearing an athletic jacket with a whistle on a lanyard around his neck.

Just wear the right costume, and you’ll fit in…