Earwax

A major issue for linguists who work with spoken language in the field is being sure we really heard what we thought we heard. This is a problem whenever the recorder is off and it gets really difficult when you hear something you weren't ready for. Keith Olbermann just asked "another was-it-me-or-was-it-earwax question". Sums up the problem pretty well, eh?

Of course, I don't have an instant replay available and blogging is the first draft of journalism,* so I'm running with it, earwax or not. It's about as good as hearsay, I figure. 

Image from our good friends here.

*On the off chance that somebody doesn't know it, the cliche is that 'journalism is the first draft of history'.