We've got mail, and linguistic MVP Dr Nicole Holliday is here to help us sort some things out around here. And we chat about the state of lingcomm today. Why is dog sushi made FOR dogs, but duck sushi is made FROM ducks? What do we call it generally when companies try to improve their image by - washing ? Is the term "MVP" becoming uncoupled from sports? Will vaping kill your vocal fry? Are shibboleths made on purpose, as a way of creating an in-group and an out-group? Plus our favourite game: R...
Nov 14, 2023•1 hr 19 min
Who wrote the Oxford English Dictionary? Sure, James Murray had a very important role as editor, but a small army of volunteers submitted hundreds of thousands of words on slips of paper to get the project off the ground. What were their stories, and why did they have such a relentless sense of mission for the OED? Dr Sarah Ogilvie is sharing her research into their lives and times, and it's startling and wondrous. She's a lexicographer and author of The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who ...
Nov 04, 2023•1 hr 43 min
What’s happening with signed language in Argentina? How are terms for gender changing in the Spanish language? And are Zoomers making work language more casual? Listener and friend of the pod Diego Diaz has put together a terrific bunch of language news and words for our edification and enjoyment.
Oct 18, 2023•1 hr 45 min
Our accents are great! They represent our origins, our languages, our community, and our identity. But too many of us feel like we can't speak with our authentic voice. Accent prejudice is real. Linguist and author Dr Rob Drummond joins us to explain all about accent and accentism. He's the author of a new book You're All Talk . And Dr Robbie Love is joining us with his research about how the word fuck is changing in the speech of British teens. Spicy!...
Oct 02, 2023•3 hr 1 min
Our patrons are joining us live to give us their news, words, and stories. That's right, it's a Potluck episode! What's a "girl dinner"? What's the other name of India? And how is AI helping translate an ancient language? Thanks to all our great patrons, and especially those who joined us for this episode.
Sep 16, 2023•1 hr 26 min
Women's bodies, women's occupations, women's experiences. So often in history, the discourse about women has been by men, about women. And that means that women's words have been lost. Dr Jenni Nuttall has charted the lost history of women's words in her new book Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women's Words , and she joins us for this episode.
Sep 02, 2023•1 hr 50 min
Listeners have once again sent us some great questions, and we have answers! Why do we TALK SHIT and not SPEAK SHIT? Do we KEEP OUT, or STAY OUT? Why are so many acronyms three letters long? How do we break young people out of the prescriptivist mindset? Isn’t “folk etymology” just… etymology? Can you think of any anagrams that are also synonyms? Plus our favourite game, Related or Not!
Aug 13, 2023•1 hr 31 min
Daniel Midgley, Ben Ainslie, and Hedvig Skirgård
Jul 26, 2023•3 hr 1 min
For decades, forensic linguists have been pushing back on harmful language ideologies, and fighting for better representation for linguistic minorities in the legal domain. We're talking to three legendary linguists who have written the definitive record of how the discipline has developed in Australia. Also: why do male characters get more dialogue in video games? And how can this situation improve? The authors of a pioneering new study share their insights.
Jun 29, 2023•2 hr 39 min
How do we make the discipline of linguistics — and our world — a more just, diverse, and equitable place? Why does our personal history and personal perspective matter when doing science? How do we build community? And what happens if we do nothing? This episode is really kind of a mini-conference. We found some new work from linguists we admire, so we put out the word to our patrons and piled into a room! We're hearing work from Dr Aris Clemons , Dr Caitlin Green , and Dr Rikker Dockum on this ...
Jun 15, 2023•1 hr 50 min
Why does everyone say OOO! when they see someone fall down? Why do we say YUM when we feed a baby? And what's the deal with fillers like UM? For this episode we're talking about non-lexical vocalisations with Dr Eleonora Beier and Dr Emily Hofstetter . Also: linguists are diving into Grambank, a database with detailed information about grammatical features in over 2,500 languages. With its release, we're talking to project leaders Dr Russell Gray and our own Dr Hedvig Skirgård . Also, Hedvig giv...
May 27, 2023•2 hr 27 min
How can you tell if a news story is intended to deceive? In one well-known case of journalistic deception, there were tells that required machine learning to trace. We’re talking to author and computational linguist Jack Grieve about his new book, The Language of Fake News .
May 15, 2023•1 hr 44 min
We're going deep into our Mailbag, and we're going to answer all your questions. Why do we say "here you go" when we give something to someone? Why can we reduce something to /sʌmʔ/? The thing is is, there are two IS there. Why? Some contractions seem to've appeared, and they look strange in writing. What other ones're out there?
Apr 25, 2023•1 hr 9 min
When language was innovated, what happened next? How did it change our abilities — and our responsibilities — to each other? Dr Nick Enfield shares ideas from his new book, Consequences of Language . Plus: Have large language models (like GPT) disproven a key tenet of the innateness of language? Dr Morten Christiansen takes us through the implications for nativism and language learning.
Apr 03, 2023•2 hr 13 min
Here’s an entire show, curated by one of our most prolific contributors — newly minted speechie PharaohKatt ! She’s got news. She’s got words. She tries to stump us on Related or Not. She even teaches us how to roll our R’s. Wow. But best of all, she answers all our questions about speech and language pathology.
Mar 25, 2023•1 hr 38 min
For this special live LingFest23 episode, we’ll again be voting on tricky language issues, and our votes will be binding on all English users for all time because that’s how language works. If you had to walk 10 kilometres “there and back”, how far away is the place? How many holes does a straw have? And if “Floyd and the chickens are outside”, is Floyd also a chicken? And many more!
Mar 02, 2023•1 hr 33 min
We all have freedom of expression, but what are its limits — social and legal? And how have governments tried to curtail it? We’re talking through the implications of free speech with Dennis Baron . He’s the author of You Can’t Always Say What You Want: The Paradox of Free Speech .
Feb 16, 2023•1 hr 43 min
The American Dialect Society Word of the Year has been chosen — and it’s a wonderful and terrible pick! Depending on who you’re talking to. In this episode, we’re talking about -USSY and all the words. And we’re getting to our Mailbag, with our most intriguing research project ever: can you spot the pattern in the way Ben pronounces EITHER and NEITHER? Is there one?
Jan 27, 2023•1 hr 37 min
In what was meant to be a casual chat, cognitive scientist Dr Mark Ellison answers galaxy-brain-level questions about how language works. Why aren't we more efficient with language? How do we know when something has gone wrong in a conversation? Why don't we just talk in a flat monotone all the time? Why do fairy tales start a certain way? Why is it so tiring to speak another language? Fortunately, he helps us keep our eyes on the ball for this episode....
Jan 03, 2023•1 hr 22 min
We're counting down our Words of the Year, as voted by you! We're joined by our friends and patrons, and they've brought us some words we missed. And we'll go through all the Words of the Year from dictionaries and language lovers, English and not. Thanks to all our friends who joined us for this show, and to all our great patrons who have supported our work. Video here: https://youtu.be/z1BmUixVNlY
Dec 20, 2022•1 hr 45 min
ChatGPT has just landed. It can generate text that seems fluid, plausible, and (surprisingly) not total nonsense. It's got a lot of people wondering what's left for humans — and for the field of Natural Language Processing. Here to help us is computational linguist Daan van Esch .
Dec 13, 2022•1 hr 26 min
Many expressions we use come from the nautical domain. But are they nautical? Are they really? We’ve got Chase Dalton from the US Naval History Podcast to shine a light on some of these expressions, and in some cases reveal the secret nautical origins of words we use every day. US Naval History Podcast on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts...
Dec 07, 2022•1 hr 28 min
A chat with Dr Kelly Wright , who’s been working on… well, really a lot. Kelly is at the juncture of a lot of areas we’re keen on. Oxford’s effort to document African-American English? She’s been there. Doing lexicography with the American Dialect Society? She’s on it. The LSA’s social media committee? She… was on it. And she’s been looking into a new unexplored area: people’s ideas about their own language knowledge. But it’s not all easy. And Kelly is here to tell us about her view of linguist...
Nov 20, 2022•1 hr 57 min
Just two words, but they do so much. But what exactly? Here to answer that question is Dr Isabelle Burke , who has studied yeah-no in depth. She’s also going to help us with these Mailbag questions. Why is LIKE so resilient? Why can we say “I very much enjoy…” but not “I much enjoy…” or “I very enjoy…”? When is a loanword not a loanword? Do word processors have a problem with singular THEY? Why doesn’t English have diacritics?...
Nov 03, 2022•1 hr 28 min
Yes, linguistics is all through the world of sci-fi, but science fiction has had a surprising impact on linguistic research as well. Dr Hannah Little is cataloguing the ways in a new book, and she joins us for this episode.
Oct 22, 2022•1 hr 48 min
It’s Ben , Hedvig , and Daniel all together in the same place for the first time. We’re talking about the state of the show, the state of linguistics communication, and where we are after all these years.
Oct 08, 2022•1 hr 15 min
Language isn’t just for communication — it’s fun. For over a hundred years, crosswords have served as entertainment, and even been blamed for society’s ills. Turns out crosswords are serious business. Author and illustrator of Letters to Margaret and crossword enthusiast Hayley Gold takes us into the history and the discussions happening in the world of crosswords — the Crossworld. You can buy Hayley’s book Letters to Margaret at this link: https://shop.lonesharkgames.com/collections/letters-to-...
Sep 13, 2022•1 hr 49 min
In which we get together for a chat, talk about stuff we like, and — oh, yeah — answers a few questions from our great listeners. Other languages have a word for late morning, before noon. Why doesn’t English have one? Why is EW the sound some English speakers make when disgusted? Why can you have potatoes, but not broccolis? Who started calling the YouTube description the DOOBLEYDOO? Is it WHOA or WOAH? Why do we use capital i for the pronoun I?...
Aug 30, 2022•1 hr 13 min
Today, we communicate. But once, we didn’t. What had to happen in our brains to make communication possible? And why don’t other animals do it like we do? We talk to Dr Thom Scott-Phillips about his new work in the social and cognitive origins of communication. And game creator Joshua Blackburn is going to test Daniel’s linguistic prowess with questions from the hottest game on Kickstarter, League of the Lexicon .
Aug 03, 2022•1 hr 46 min
Our friends, listeners, and patrons give us so many great stories, news, and words, so for this live episode, we’re having them tell these language stories in their own words. Thanks to PharaohKatt, Lord Mortis, Ariaflame, seejanecricket, Aristemo, O Tim, Ditte, Rodger, and Ben (not the host one).
Jul 27, 2022•1 hr 27 min
