...have a benny on me...

Inspired by an email from someone else interested in semiotics, I felt it was about time I filled the world in on the paper I am writing for gendered linguistics. It's exciting and interesting and smelly. If I can keep the methodology concrete and professional, I am going to try and get it published. Either way, it is something that has really gotten a hold of me, and I'm intrigued to see what I find.

How many people do you know who say they've reached their greatest ideas sitting on the john? Well this idea literally appeared in front of me on the toilet. It occured to me one day as I read the latest scribbles on the wall in front of me that I had here a perfect example of an absolutely isolated single-sex conversation milieu. If there was any concrete way to compare the communication styles of men and women, what better way than through bathroom graffiti? Not only is it completely same sex in practise, I have a theory (which may or may not prove correct) that separated from the other sex as they are, the examples of speech in this context will be more accurate of the true speech identities of either men or women.

Reading the one serious article I could find on this subject, I decided to borrow that author's idea of how to in some way test these comparisons in a mixed-gender settings. Study cubicles are small and isolated like bathroom stalls, but are available to both genders. The three walls boxing them in also give an illusion of the kind of privacy that exists in bathrooms. Hopefully, it will show some kind of a common ground of the two language styles.

The past couple of weeks has been research and theorizing; data collection starts on Wednesday as Cody and I head around the U of T campus transcribing selected washrooms and libraries; I will fill you in as I go. I would love to hear any comments, suggestions or ideas you have. Or even some of the more interesting writing you have come across in toilets you have... visited?