UPDATED: The über-condensed version of Linguistics
@ChristopherLane over on Twitter asks:
but I am intrigued, what do linguistics entail?
(note to self: write WP plugin to automatically link @ tags to Twitter. Or find one. Or get Matt to write it. Done: Got Matt to write it.)
This is going to be a butchery vague summary job of an explanation of what linguistics is, but if you want detail, go to Wikipedia and spend the next 3 months reading!