How much do you think he was bullshitting, though? Latin was surely classified traditionally as an Italic, not a Romance language.

Queen of Sciences: you might want to sit down for this one, Hat, tis a pitiful tale.

I remember mentioning, a few years back and in the context of some other discussion, the word "philology" to an academic, and having her return my email with a query: "What's that mean?" She claimed never to have heard the word.

And this a tenured associate professor in the humanities at an American liberal arts college.

Whoa -- it's supposed to mean "the love of learning," but it's written like "the study of loving." Why not "logophilia," or something like that?

I think it's just a matter of semantic overlap that 'philology' doesn't quite jibe with our other '-ology' forms. One meaning of Greek 'logos' is 'word', so 'philology' means 'love of words' as 'philip' means 'lover of horses' & 'philadelphia' means 'brotherly love' (actually, that's not quite what it means, but that's another story.) -- Closest to 'love of learning' would be 'philosophy'.

Long time, no comment. Glad to see you doing well, LH.

The Gothic requirement is interesting because IIRC Geoff Pullum in his _The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax_, goes off a bit on the LSA's journal Language and their requirements that discuss the appropriate use of Gothic. (Sorry, it's at the office right now, so I can't remember if it is the font used or something else)