A more general note about linguistics: I like reading The Language Log and linguistic analyses in general, but every time I’ve tried to actually study linguistics I’ve bounced off the surface of the subject.  Something about the foundational knowledge of the study bores me to tears, for no reason I can satisfactorily explain.  This is useful to me, though, when people tell me that they don’t like physics because it has too much math.  I can think to myself, “crazy as that sounds, it is probably analogous to how I feel about linguistics.”  (I still try periodically.  I secretly hold out hope that some day I will stumble upon a book that makes the foundational ideas of linguistics accessible to me.  And then I will be able to tell people who don’t like physics that they are objectively wrong. Huzzah!)