i mean, i know someone who got their phd in linguistics making a graph of “how do people pronounce [i forget what the word was] here” in the US [edit and Canada i forgot they went up to Medicine Hat for part of the study]. someone else with “do you call it soda, pop, or soda pop (shut up atlanta you coke fiends you don’t count)”. maybe they were masters degrees and their phds were something else i forget this was decades ago. i don’t know enough of the prereqs, but “is dude masculine or gender neutral” would be a fun study and maybe pay for me to go back to college for a decade. (because i would need to learn more than hobby linguistics)