Because Language – a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
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A podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
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149: Grammar Girl Is 20 (live with Mignon Fogarty and friends)
As Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty has been dispensing grammar wisdom for 20 years, and her book Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing has gotten an update. So what's new? How has the scene changed? And will you …
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As Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty has been dispensing grammar wisdom for 20 years, and her book Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing has gotten an update. So what's new? How has the scene changed? And will you be able to spot the phony grammar rules from the real (and equally bizarre) ones? Grammar goddess Mignon Fogarty joins us with a live audience of patrons. Join us! patreon.com/becauselangpod
Video episode: https://youtu.be/2hagymSrwT8
Timestamps
00:00 Start: Everybody's dooting 01:00 Intros: Daniel, Hedvig, and Mignon Fogarty 02:32 Mignon's journey as Grammar Girl 04:38 New patron shoutout 07:55 Grammar Girl as an identity 14:28 Public shifts in prescriptivism 17:57 Two truths and one lie: Outlandish grammar advice 30:33 The intersection of grammar and manners 33:46 Oxford comma advice 41:00 Related or Not: Theme by Andy from Logophilius 42:12 Related or Not: deck and decorate 46:42 Related or Not: vassal and vessel 50:47 Related or Not: robot, rob, robe, Robert 56:01 Revising Grammar Girl's book 01:00:52 Hopefully isn't wrong 01:05:46 Actual good grammar advice 01:08:56 What's changed in the lingcomm scene? 01:10:11 Cursed question from Hedvig 01:14:14 Word of the Week: liquid content 01:17:49 Word of the Week: sexy apocalypse 01:20:38 Word of the Week: tilcayo 01:22:45 Thanks to all and bye 01:23:09 The Reads
148: On the Mark (with Florence Hazrat)
Commas, em dashes, apostrophes, and interrobangs. We use them for timing, for grammar, and even for social purposes. But these little marks didn't just arise overnight. Dr Florence Hazrat fills us in on the …
Shownotes
Commas, em dashes, apostrophes, and interrobangs. We use them for timing, for grammar, and even for social purposes. But these little marks didn't just arise overnight. Dr Florence Hazrat fills us in on the history and meaning of these symbols. Florence is the author of On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World.
Timestamps
00:00 Start 01:48 Intros and hot punctuation takes (5:21) On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World 06:13 Patreon plug: It's OnlyFans for your brain 11:37 News: Irish citizenship test 17:35 News: Bonobo compositionality maybe not a thing 22:36 Side note: How does disconfirmation feel? 26:26 News: Analogies increase fidelity in language transmission 36:34 News: The Internet Archive is saving news footage 39:30 Related or Not: Theme from Camden 40:14 Related or Not 1: stick 44:32 Related or Not 2: vacation, vaccine, vacuum 46:10 Related or Not 3: Spot the pair 52:57 Interview with Florence Hazrat, author of On the Mark 55:09 Getting into punctuation 56:44 Punctuation is about prosody and…? 01:02:26 Misconceptions and playfulness in punctuation 01:04:45 Who were the heavy hitters in punctuation? 01:08:36 Punctuation as a democratising force 01:11:38 Hyphens and identity 01:14:59 English puts hyphens and spaces everywhere 01:20:14 How is digital communication changing punctuation? 01:23:57 Of dashes both em and en 01:30:33 Which punctuation marks have disappeared? 01:35:48 What punctuation should we be using, but don't? 01:38:15 Does punctuation help reading comprehension? 01:46:11 Conscious punctuation 01:49:19 Word of the Week: parachute 01:54:34 Word of the Week: Lake America 01:56:09 Word of the Week: doom trolling 02:05:44 Word of the Week: Naoero 02:06:46 Comment from Scott: Soo-ey! and Shakespeare 02:08:42 The Reads
Show notes
Why does French have circumflex letters? https://thelanguagecloset.com/2022/05/21/french-circumflex-circonflexe/
Citizenship rules to be tightened with longer residency and language test https://www.thejournal.ie/irish-citizenship-residency-changes-7154915-Sep2026/
White Australia policy | National Museum Australia https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/white-australia-policy
Dictation test passages used in 1925 | National Archives of Australia https://www.naa.gov.au/students-and-teachers/learning-resources/learning-resource-themes/society-and-culture/migration-and-multiculturalism/dictation-test-passages-used-1925
[PDF] Aspects of Racism in the Australian Context: Issues of Definition and Action
Minister for External Affairs Atlee Hunt, in a 1903 memo to his staff: "It is not desirable that [coloured] persons should be allowed to pass the test . . . and before putting it to anyone the Officer should be satisfied that he will fail. If he is considered likely to pass the test if put in English, it should be applied in some other language of which he is ignorant." https://www7.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AUJlHRights/1994/9.pdf
Structure without semantics: no evidence for bonobo compositionality in Berthet et al. (2025) https://peerj.com/articles/21651/
Holding, Thomas, Paul E. Smaldino, and Charlotte O. Brand. "Analogies Evolve by Increasing Transmission Fidelity in the Communication of Complex Information." Evolutionary Human Sciences 8 (2026): e32. https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2026.10063.
TV News Search & Borrow | Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/tv
Jethro Tull - Aqualung (Instrumental) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVcsLJ3mixQ
Catherine the Great was inoculated against smallpox in a risky experiment. It changed Russia's history https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-22/catherine-the-great-russian-empress-inoculation-thomas-dinsdale/101405692
On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World, by Florence Hazrat https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/florence-hazrat/on-the-mark/9781541606494/?lens=basic-books
(01:39:46) All over me
On the Mark: Apple Books link https://books.apple.com/us/book/on-the-mark/id6755950089
Richard Artschwager, Exclamation Point (Yellow), 2001 http://www.dreamideamachine.com/?p=81116
Broken Swedish words (split by accidental spaces) breaking translations https://forum.readlang.com/t/broken-swedish-words-split-by-accidental-spaces-breaking-translations/5256
Tear Drops and Roses: Persian Punctuation by Florence Hazrat https://mindthegap1.substack.com/p/tear-drops-and-roses-persian-punctuation
Irony punctuation | Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation
Mind the Gap | Florence Hazrat on Sunstack https://mindthegap1.substack.com
Florence Hazrat on Instagram (@thepunctuationlady) https://www.instagram.com/thepunctuationlady/
Labor's Secret Harbour by-election loss is ominous https://redflag.org.au/article/labors-secret-harbour-by-election-loss-is-ominous/
Political Parties, book by Duverger | Brittanica https://www.britannica.com/topic/Political-Parties
Political parties : their organization and activity in the modern state, by Duverger, Maurice, 1917- | Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/politicalparties0000duve/page/n9/mode/2up?q=parachuting
History of a concept: 'Parachute' candidates, an old electoral practice of politics taking precedence over roots https://www.lemonde.fr/en/history/article/2022/06/17/history-of-a-concept-parachute-candidates-an-old-electoral-practice-of-politics-priming-over-roots_5987200_157.html
Parachute candidate | Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute_candidate
Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario 'Lake America' amid Canada trade war https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/27/trump-canada-lake-america-ontario.html
Coxon tweet https://x.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843
Google engineer claims AI technology LaMDA is sentient https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-13/google-ai-lamda-sentient-engineer-blake-lemoine-says/101147222
OpenAI IPO will not happen in 2026 amid AI safety fears, Sam Altman says https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/12/openai-delays-ipo-sam-altman-ai-safety-concerns
Timnit Gebru tweet https://x.com/timnitGebru/status/2098289939217846660
Dear AI Companies: Stop the "Doom Trolling" https://calnewport.com/dear-ai-companies-stop-the-doom-trolling/
Cal Newport: Dear AI Companies: Stop the "Doom Trolling" https://youtu.be/aHxwZEXHwps?si=7K5dLhu34NIRPRqm
The Thrill of Wanting AI to Destroy the World https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/09/ai-destroy-world-apocalypse/688575/
Nauru officially changes its name to Naoero https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/03/nauru-officially-changes-its-name-to-naoero
Shakespeare in the Bush Bohannon, Laura (1971), from Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, eds. James P. Spradley and David W. McCurdy Boston: Little Brown and Company. https://web.archive.org/web/20060613143803/http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~idris/Essays/Shakes_in_Bush.htm
List of typographical symbols and punctuation marks | Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typographical_symbols_and_punctuation_marks
147: The Language Beat (with Michael Erard)
Michael Erard has been covering language in major publications for a good long while. What has he learned, and what can linguistic communication take from his work? Michael sits down for a chat with Daniel and …
Shownotes
Michael Erard has been covering language in major publications for a good long while. What has he learned, and what can linguistic communication take from his work? Michael sits down for a chat with Daniel and Hedvig to talk about his new book The Language Beat: Essays and Reporting on Language and Life.
Timestamps
00:00 Start 01:21 Getting the book together: Save your contracts! 04:22 Getting into lingcomm 06:38 Popular things v things you're interested in 10:48 Getting the Spidey sense 19:30 Public reactions and book tour insights 23:22 Lingcomm involves a little bit of pastoral care 26:55 How has the lingcomm landscape changed? 34:05 Persistent misunderstandings 39:48 Are we seeing a lingcomm explosion? 47:37 Are we doing any good? 57:07 Thanks and closing
146: Beyond Words (with Karen Stollznow)
How do children learn language, and why can't other animals? Why are false friends between languages always naughty? And how is public perception of language changing? Dr Karen Stollznow is taking us through a …
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How do children learn language, and why can't other animals? Why are false friends between languages always naughty? And how is public perception of language changing? Dr Karen Stollznow is taking us through a tour of psycholinguistics, taboo language, and linguistic skepticism with her new book Beyond Words: How We Learn, Use, and Lose Language. We're also taking a look at Bitch: The Journey of a Word.
Timestamps
- 00:00 Start
- 00:32 Intros: Do you use Y'ALL?
- 06:46 New patron shoutout
- 08:07 News: Strathfield Council trying to control shop signage
- 17:37 News: Claude introduces watermarking
- 25:43 News: Welsh joins the Star Wars club
- 29:30 Related or Not: Theme from Hugh
- 30:25 Related or Not 1: cute and acute
- 34:48 Related or Not 2: skip
- 42:22 Related or Not 3: tribe, tribute, & tributary
- 46:51 Karen Stollznow on psycholinguistics
- 50:36 Language and animal communication
- 53:37 Skepticism in linguistics
- 59:48 Getting a book done
- 01:02:09 The attraction of taboo words
- 01:08:18 Daddy diaries and child language acquisition
- 01:15:00 False friends
- 01:19:09 Best way to learn a language?
- 01:22:05 Public awareness of linguistics
- 01:26:58 Word of the Week: forever war
- 01:29:56 Word of the Week: aegyo
- 01:31:20 Word of the Week: meat proxy
- 01:33:46 Word of the Week: Cyberno de Bergerac
- 01:37:31 Comment: vague v ambiguous
- 01:39:24 Comment: Okay if languages die?
- 01:41:59 Comment: Sudoku pronunciation in Japanese
- 01:43:20 The Reads
- 01:56:02 Outtake: Hedvig watches an eclipse
- 02:00:18 Outtake: Glottle
145: Face With Tears of Joy (live with Keith Houston and friends)
Emoji, once regarded as some kind of frivolous nonsense, have become an important way we communicate online. But how did these little pictures come to our devices? What is the Unicode Consortium, and how did …
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Emoji, once regarded as some kind of frivolous nonsense, have become an important way we communicate online. But how did these little pictures come to our devices? What is the Unicode Consortium, and how did they get involved? And who is the Levitating Suit Guy? Fear not; author Keith Houston is here to give us the whole story in front of a live audience. Keith is the author of Face With Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji.
Timestamps
00:00 Start 02:21 Introducing Keith Houston, author of Face With Tears of Joy 03:28 Put your top five emoji in chat 08:03 What's the state of emoji now? 10:11 How did the Unicode Consortium get involved? 22:30 The strange history of Levitating Suit Guy 27:37 The latest emoji in v17.0 30:12 Changes to some emoji 38:22 What gives an emoji staying power? 47:12 Related or Not: Theme by David 48:10 Related or Not 1: orchard and hoard 52:46 Related or Not 2: belle, bell, ball, & ball 59:01 Related or Not 3: Italian aceto (vinegar) & Spanish aceite (oil) 01:03:45 Why don't they use emoji on Reddit? 01:05:26 Are emoji now more acceptable in serious contexts? 01:08:34 Do speakers of some languages use emoji more? 01:13:00 Any languages where they just don't use emoji? 01:13:59 Does everyone call them "emoji"? 01:16:13 Sociolinguistic trends in emoji? 01:22:12 The reads: Which emoji is closest to your name? 01:33:06 Afterparty
144: Sociophonetics Deep Dive (with Jennifer Nycz, Lauren Hall-Lew, and Kelly Wright)
Why don't we all sound the same? Are some accents easier to learn? And are there reasons for the differences in how people sound and sign, or is it just random? We use sound and sign to encode information about …
Shownotes
Why don't we all sound the same? Are some accents easier to learn? And are there reasons for the differences in how people sound and sign, or is it just random?
We use sound and sign to encode information about our age, place, gender, sexuality, and so much more. Sometimes we're not even aware of how we do it. But we're fixing that on this episode with Jennifer Nycz and Lauren Hall-Lew, editors of Sociophonetics: Implications for Phonological and Phonetic Theory.
Timestamps
00:00 Start: Introducing Jennifer Nycz and Lauren-Hall Lew 01:57 What is sociophonetics? 03:01 What's in our own sociophonetic background? 10:10 Why is it always vowels, vowels, vowels? 13:03 Why don't we all just sound the same? 15:09 You can hallucinate accents by seeing a photo 16:00 Sound encodes gender and sexuality 20:57 Chronolects, Boomerlects, and GenX-lects 22:04 Tweens to teens: What to expect sociophonetically? 27:33 Are there reasons for sound variation and change? 34:16 Why does a community change faster than an individual? 38:37 Does media have an influence on accent? 42:17 How much are we consciously aware of? 44:52 Are some accents easier? 48:39 What are the sociophonetic hot spots? 50:54 Are American women more nasal? 52:09 Persistent misconceptions 54:49 Fight linguistic discrimination, or teach marginalised people to "pass"? 01:03:03 The sociophonetics of signed languages
143: How to Kill a Language (with Sophia Smith Galer)
How does it feel to be isolated from a language and a culture that could have been yours? There are many paths to language loss, but there are also many ways back. Language revitalisation is now happening for …
Shownotes
How does it feel to be isolated from a language and a culture that could have been yours? There are many paths to language loss, but there are also many ways back. Language revitalisation is now happening for communities and individuals. We're talking about it with journalist and lingToker Sophia Smith Galer, author of How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words.
Timestamps
00:00 Start 00:34 Intros: How are you "going"? 05:54 News: A font that can poison data for GenAI 13:51 News: A lost Golden Age of language in the Holocene 27:33 News: New language support for Netflix, Disney+ 33:59 Related or Not: Theme from Gordon 34:37 Related or Not: ramshackle 41:39 Related or Not: nap 48:57 Related or Not: adder, deer, natter, otter, hydra 54:12 Chat with Sophia Smith Galer: Her language background 01:00:31 The pain of separation from one's own language 01:05:01 Attacks on multicuturalism 01:07:34 Is all language death language murder? 01:09:41 The role of parents in language transmission 01:16:52 Factors influencing language survival 01:26:50 Will GenAI help or harm minority languages? 01:35:33 Challenging monoglossic language ideology 01:40:36 Sophia encourages linguistic curiosity 01:43:11 Responding to a review: Is it okay if languages die? 01:53:21 Word of the Week: slop zombie 01:55:29 Word of the Week: eternity leave 01:56:24 Word of the Week: spherical bastard 01:58:10 Word of the Week: the butter's penthouse 02:01:47 Word of the Week: Jimothy 02:04:42 Comments: Ingressive speech 02:08:33 The Reads 02:15:40 Outtakes: Hedvig's plant
142: If This Be Magic (with Daniel Hahn)
Translating Shakespeare takes a knowledge of language, culture, and poetry — both in English and in the target language. There are tradeoffs and pitfalls, but a skilled translator can bring Shakespeare closer …
Shownotes
Translating Shakespeare takes a knowledge of language, culture, and poetry — both in English and in the target language. There are tradeoffs and pitfalls, but a skilled translator can bring Shakespeare closer to our age, not just to another language. We're talking with translator Daniel Hahn, author of If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation.
Also, we're answering listener questions. Send us yours!
Timestamps
00:00 Start 00:21 Intros: Shakespearean insults 07:33 Pronouncing SUDOKU: Why so variable? 15:58 Ingressive speech 20:46 Nonplussed 26:59 Related or Not: Theme from Hugh 28:13 Related or Not: pooch, pouch, pocket, and poach 38:14 Related or Not: caddy and caddie 42:47 Related or Not: hemi-, demi-, and semi- 49:30 Chat with Daniel Hahn: Keeping everything but the words 52:51 Spanish as a language of translation 58:59 Translation closes the distance: Shakespeare in contemporary English 01:07:02 Poetic meter and when to break it 01:11:07 Punctuating the translation 01:16:08 Archaic words and the feel of Shakespeare 01:18:23 Hardest language to translate Skakespeare into? 01:20:43 Staying true to time and culture 01:26:05 Having fun 01:31:12 Monosyllables 01:34:32 The impact of GenAI on translation 01:37:38 Getting people to care about translation 01:40:37 Should multi-line highway word markings start near to us or start far? 01:47:48 Gender and the -ster suffix 01:56:12 Comment from Allyson: Soo-ee! 01:58:03 The Reads 02:02:01 Outtake
141: Why Q Needs U (with Danny Bate and Caitlin M. Green)
Each letter in our Latin alphabet tells a story. But what about spaces? Or writing direction? Should we get rid of some letters, or could we even do with more? Here to answer all these questions is Dr Danny …
Shownotes
Each letter in our Latin alphabet tells a story. But what about spaces? Or writing direction? Should we get rid of some letters, or could we even do with more? Here to answer all these questions is Dr Danny Bate, author of Why Q Needs U: A History of Our Letters and How We Use Them.
Timestamps
- 00:00 Start
- 00:44 Intros: Special letters
- 05:46 News: Spanish okay at World Cup?
- 09:30 News: Forgetting is helpful in language acquisition
- 21:18 News: Bluey in Yolŋu
- 25:41 Related or Not theme by Jo
- 27:21 Related or Not: prodigy, prodigal, and prodigious
- 34:19 Related or Not: vice, device, divide
- 43:09 Related or Not: gauntlet and gaunt
- 49:48 Interview with Danny Bate, author of Why Q Needs U
- 50:16 About Danny's podcast: A Language I Love Is…
- 52:24 The Alphabet: greatest innovation since sexual reproduction
- 56:08 The case against boustrophedon
- 58:51 Letters flipped over time
- 01:02:40 Why are some letters more common than others?
- 01:06:14 Why does H get used in so many digraphs?
- 01:10:52 Thoughts on spelling reform
- 01:18:07 Why are L and R so squirrelly?
- 01:28:53 The evolution of spaces in written language
- 01:31:46 What letters can we get rid of?
- 01:35:15 Actually, no, we need a new letter
- 01:36:53 Communicating linguistic ideas to the public
- 01:44:02 Word of the Week: monoculture
- 01:53:43 Word of the Week: algae-TBQ agenda
- 02:00:15 Word of the Week: hobbylos
- 02:03:14 Word of the Week: tokenmaxxing
- 02:06:27 Word of the Week: Claudeonomics
- 02:11:21 The Reads
- 02:18:18 Outtakes: Back on our Bluey nonsense + On being a Dan
140: These Strange New Minds (with Christopher Summerfield and Caitlin Green)
We created software that could generate human-like text output quickly and easily. Now we're dealing with the societal upheaval it's caused. What are the risks and rewards, and what can we learn about language …
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We created software that could generate human-like text output quickly and easily. Now we're dealing with the societal upheaval it's caused. What are the risks and rewards, and what can we learn about language from these large language models? Daniel — joined by Caitlin Green — has a chat with Dr Christopher Summerfield, author of These Strange New Minds: How AI Learned to Talk and What It Means.
Timestamps
00:00 Start 00:46 Intros: Generative A.I. concerns 04:15 Shout out to our patrons! 05:03 News: AP Style Guide defines COUPLE 10:35 News: Men do vocal fry more 14:59 News: Uptalk from 1890 16:01 News: Is Singlish up? 22:22 Related or Not: Bonkers Mélange editon, theme from Ste 23:41 Related or Not: population, discombobulate, bobbin 29:09 Related or Not: goggle, goo-goo, agog 36:09 Related or Not: once, ounce, pounce, lynx 41:55 Interview with Christopher Summerfield: Do you like A.I.? 44:21 Consequences of AI: Will we know nothing, or know everything? 47:03 Are LLMs just spicy autocorrect? 48:44 Are LLMs simply regurgitating their training data? 49:51 LLMs are getting better fast 52:33 On consciousness and intentionality 55:58 Do LLMs (or humans) understand? 58:58 The Chinese Room 01:01:00 Should we avoid anthropomorphising language around LLM behaviour? 01:04:02 Why we dismiss LLMs 01:07:26 Accelerationists, anti-hypers, and X-risk: Which are you? 01:09:49 Safety, privacy, and security 01:14:29 The magic wand of policy 01:20:18 Fixing the hallucination problem 01:27:36 Goals of the book 01:31:18 Word of the Week: liminal 01:39:59 Word of the Week: pink slime journalism 01:44:44 Word of the Week: waste colonialism 01:48:13 Quick words: hot-washing, eppy, shoulder surgfing, news-jacking, bio-break 01:51:37 Word of the Week: wario 01:55:02 The Reads 02:01:06 Outtake: That time when a siren went off in Hedvig's Parisian hotel, mid-recording
Video for this episode: https://youtu.be/94SbeM0KpWw
139: Magpie Syntax (with Stephanie Mason)
Australian magpies are even cleverer birds than we thought. New research from Dr Stephanie Mason shows that they do two language-like things we used to think only humans could do: learn their calls socially …
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Australian magpies are even cleverer birds than we thought. New research from Dr Stephanie Mason shows that they do two language-like things we used to think only humans could do: learn their calls socially, and combine their calls in a way that looks a lot like syntax. So are we calling this language? If so, how are the linguists taking it? Stephanie joins us to talk about magpies, media, and the territoriality of linguists.
Timestamps
00:00 Start 00:54 Intros: Your favourite bird 07:10 What's coming up: Magpies 09:34 Join us! Patreon spruikery 11:32 News: Jamaican MP shut down for speaking Jamaican in Parliament 19:35 News: Whale phonology 31:46 News: Unicode to include new genderless pronoun for Mandarin 36:37 News: China and the Rubio Workaround 38:16 Related or Not: New theme from Hugh! 40:05 Related or Not 1: SLAP, SMACK, and SWAT 45:45 Related or Not 2: SOUND 56:13 Related or Not 3: SPECK, SPECKLE, SPECTRE, and SPECTRUM 01:00:36 Talking about magpies with Stephanie Mason 01:03:38 About Australian magpies 01:06:17 The problem of anthropomorphism 01:15:21 What's the semantic content? 01:22:52 Linguists can be territorial about language 01:34:48 Social complexity drives new behaviours 01:45:19 Magpies learn their calls socially 01:49:42 Magpies combine their calls 01:58:44 Magpies learn calls across the lifespan 02:05:36 Finding those birds 02:08:10 Doing public engagement: Are metaphors actually helping? 02:17:26 Words of the Week: mog 02:24:54 Word of the Week: pied-à-terre 02:27:48 Word of the Week: dummymander 02:33:03 Word of the Week: Sooooo-ee! 02:39:22 Etymology of Guacamole 02:39:35 Comment: guacamole = testicle sauce? 02:41:28 The reads 02:46:28 Outtake
138: Pop-Up Gaeltacht (live with Laura Pakenham and friends)
Wherever Irish speakers in the world get together, you can have a "pop-up Gaeltacht"! And we're having one on this episode. We've got author and TG4 presenter Laura Pakenham taking us through the history and …
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Wherever Irish speakers in the world get together, you can have a "pop-up Gaeltacht"! And we're having one on this episode. We've got author and TG4 presenter Laura Pakenham taking us through the history and orthography of this great and resilient language. Laura is the author of Irish: History and Culture Through Language.
Timestamps
00:00 Start 00:24 Introducing Laura Pakenham 10:12 About Laura: Getting the gig 15:01 Navigating "correct" usage v. common usage 21:05 Different Irish voices on TG4 21:56 Getting feedback from Gaeilge speakers 24:33 Gaeilge as it is today 30:15 Irish is fun and cool, not so much a duty anymore 37:55 On coming to Irish as a learner 41:30 Related or Not: Theme 42:49 Related or Not: JIG, GIGUE, and JOG 49:51 Related or Not: HEATH, HEATHER, and HEATHEN 56:31 Related or Not: SCRAP and SCRUPLES 01:01:10 Gaeilge orthography and phonology 01:08:37 Gaeilge words and idioms 01:13:36 Why are things often referred to as "she"? 01:15:43 Favourite Irish words? 01:17:40 Irish diaspora and its linguistic impact 01:21:30 Advice for language advocates 01:23:59 The reads
137: Are Trees Real? (with Yngwie Nielsen and Morten Christiansen)
What goes on in our minds when we construct an utterance? Linguists often use syntax trees to represent the structure of sentences, but are they psychologically real? Yngwie Nielsen and Dr Morten Christiansen …
Shownotes
What goes on in our minds when we construct an utterance? Linguists often use syntax trees to represent the structure of sentences, but are they psychologically real? Yngwie Nielsen and Dr Morten Christiansen have found evidence for something else: we can recognise patterns in strings of words, even when they don't form coherent "treelets". They're giving us a walkthrough of their latest work.
Timestamps
00:00 Start 00:31 Introductions: Yngwie and Morten 05:19 Insights into linguistics communication 07:45 What are syntax trees? 09:13 Why linguists love syntax trees 14:15 Treelets vs chunks: Looking beyond hierarchical structure 17:46 Wanna and gonna: Words that cross treelet boundaries 22:43 How to prime someone 28:18 Priming in this experiment: People do recognise chunks 32:26 Are people just filling in the treelet blanks? 35:23 Were they accidentally smuggling in treelets? 38:47 Do we process both treelets and chunks? 42:23 DensiTrees: A way of representing fuzzy networks 44:01 What are we doing mentally when we make an utterance? 47:20 What is language for? 49:29 Grammatical glue: How do we connect chunks? 53:23 Being able to language is bonkers 56:30 Should we be studying language differently? 01:01:09 Wrap-up and goodbyes
136: These Languages Are Anchors (with Mary Walworth)
What will happen to the languages of climate refugees? Dr Mary Walworth has been working with the small island community of Nusi in Papua New Guinea, which was recently featured in an episode of Pole to Pole …
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What will happen to the languages of climate refugees? Dr Mary Walworth has been working with the small island community of Nusi in Papua New Guinea, which was recently featured in an episode of Pole to Pole with Will Smith. What's it like doing media for a large audience, and more importantly, how do we help speakers hold onto their language? Dr Walworth joins us for this episode.
Timestamps
00:00 Start 00:45 Intros 04:00 What's coming up on this episode 06:58 New patron shoutout and spruik 09:05 News: Air Canada CEO resigns over English communication 14:34 News: Banning foreign language election information in the UK 23:54 News: Can LLMs pass the Wug Test? 34:03 News: Does closing your eyes help you hear better? 39:48 Related or Not: Theme 40:23 Related or Not: GORGE, ENGORGE, and GORGEOUS 48:09 Related or Not: ANY and MANY 51:54 Related or Not: GUAVA, GUACAMOLE, GUARANÍ, GUARANÁ 01:00:20 Interview with Mary Walworth 01:45:52 Word of the Week: bimbofication 01:54:00 Word of the Week: glottophobia 01:55:50 Word of the Week: liveness check 01:57:54 Comment from Colin: CLAN and PLANTA 01:59:03 Comment from Lauren: crash blossoms 02:02:49 The Reads 02:08:09 Outtake
135: Linguistic Illusions (with Dan Parker)
"More people have listened to this episode than you have." Why does this sentence look so right, but feel so wrong? When your grammar says one thing, but your brain says another, you may have found a linguistic …
Shownotes
"More people have listened to this episode than you have." Why does this sentence look so right, but feel so wrong? When your grammar says one thing, but your brain says another, you may have found a linguistic illusion. We're talking to Dr Dan Parker, author of Linguistic Illusions: A Case Study on Agreement Attraction.
Video for this episode: https://youtu.be/_9BcmMZrH7s
Timestamps
- Start: 0:00
- Intros: 0:27
- News: 6:30
- Related or Not: 34:22
- Interview with Dan Parker: 49:53
- Words of the Week: 1:38:00
- Comment: 1:54:16
- The Reads: 1:58:19
- Outtakes: 2:05:39
134: True Colour (with Kory Stamper)
How do you define what blue is? What even IS colour? Turns out, the quest to define colours was happening along with a standardisation crisis and a dictionary crisis at the venerable Merriam-Webster …
Shownotes
How do you define what blue is? What even IS colour? Turns out, the quest to define colours was happening along with a standardisation crisis and a dictionary crisis at the venerable Merriam-Webster. Lexicographer and author Kory Stamper tells us all about it, and about her new book True Color.
Timestamps
- Start: 0:00
- Intros: 1:17
- News: 12:40
- Related or Not: 33:34
- Chat with Kory Stamper, author of True Color: 50:43
- Words of the Week: 1:41:58
- Comment from Lauretta: 2:04:57
- The Reads: 2:08:14
- Outtakes: 2:16:48
133: Why We Talk Funny (with Valerie Fridland)
We all have an accent — or several! And we use them to communicate things about us, and highlight aspects of our identity. So what's going on with the accents we hear? Are we losing some accents, or are they …
Shownotes
We all have an accent — or several! And we use them to communicate things about us, and highlight aspects of our identity. So what's going on with the accents we hear? Are we losing some accents, or are they just changing? Dr Valerie Fridland is the author of Why We Talk Funny, and she joins us for this episode.
Timestamps
- Start: 0:00
- Intros: 0:30
- News: 6:25
- Related or Not: 17:59
- Interview with Valerie Fridland: 36:53
- Words of the Week: 1:50:34
- The Reads: 2:21:21
- Outtakes: 2:26:14
132: WotY 2025, the Final Word (with Kelly Wright)
We're talking to Dr Kelly Wright, friend of the show and data czar for the American Dialect Society. They run the biggest and most prestigious Word of the Year event, and she was there when the 2025 WotY votes …
Shownotes
We're talking to Dr Kelly Wright, friend of the show and data czar for the American Dialect Society. They run the biggest and most prestigious Word of the Year event, and she was there when the 2025 WotY votes came in. She's talking us through all the words we missed. Plus we get to some listener feedback.
Timestamps
- Start: 0:00
- Intros: 0:41
- The ADS WotYs for 2025: 7:12
- Related or Not: 1:00:51
- Listener comments: 1:09:53
- The Reads: 1:20:28
- Outtakes: 1:27:01
Video version of this episode:
131: Words of the Week of the Year 2025 (live with friends)
Video for this episode: https://youtu.be/Mqf05kN-TaI It's Word of the Year season, and we're counting down our Words of the Week of the Year! In the time-honoured tradition, we gathered them all up from our …
Shownotes
Video for this episode: https://youtu.be/Mqf05kN-TaI
It's Word of the Year season, and we're counting down our Words of the Week of the Year! In the time-honoured tradition, we gathered them all up from our 2025 shows, and let everyone vote. And we're going to give a mention to everyone else's words as well. We're joined by our friends and patrons, so come see them in chat!
Timestamps
- Start: 0:00
- Intros: 1:31
- Everyone else's words: 5:57
- Related or Not: 34:34
- Our Words of the Week of the Year: 51:35
- Comments: 1:22:04
- The Reads: 1:26:36
- Outtakes: 1:30:50
130: Back to the FTR (with Séan Roberts, Cole Robertson, and Annemarie Verkerk)
You know the story. The language you speak doesn't determine your savings. If your language has a future tense, there's no impact on the way you see or describe the future. Language and perception are separate …
Shownotes
You know the story. The language you speak doesn't determine your savings. If your language has a future tense, there's no impact on the way you see or describe the future. Language and perception are separate.
Well, maybe it's time to revisit this. Séan Roberts and Cole Robertson are finding a cognitive connection, not with how our language makes us talk about the future, but with how our language lets us express uncertainty.
Also, Annemarie Verkerk and Hedvig Skirgård team up to test out language universals. Which ones are getting knocked over?
Timestamps
- Start: 0:00
- Intros: 0:36
- News: 6:08
- Chat with Annemarie Verkerk and Hedvig Skirgård: 23:06
- Related or Not: 49:22
- Interview with Séan Roberts and Cole Robertson: 1:10:38
- Words of the Week: 2:18:09
- Comments: 2:37:20
- The Reads: 2:42:37
- Outtakes: 2:50:05
129: They Started It: Children and Language Evolution (with Madeleine Beekman)
We've asked linguists about how language began, but what would an evolutionary biologist tell you? Prof Madeleine Beekman says it's part of a complex web of body, brain, and community, and at the heart of it is …
Shownotes
We've asked linguists about how language began, but what would an evolutionary biologist tell you? Prof Madeleine Beekman says it's part of a complex web of body, brain, and community, and at the heart of it is (perhaps surprisingly) childcare. Madeleine is the author of The Origin of Language: How We Learned to Speak and Why.
Timestamps
- Cold open: 0:00
- Intros: 0:42
- News: 9:07
- Related or Not: 30:02
- Interview with Madeleine Beekman: 49:43
- Words of the Week: 1:40:49
- Comments: 2:01:30
- The Reads: 2:08:07
- Outtakes: 2:17:38
128: Across the Universe (with Natan Last)
Among so many great word games, crosswords still reign supreme. How have they survived — and even expanded — in our digital age? What goes into a good puzzle, and will computer techniques take over? Daniel …
Shownotes
Among so many great word games, crosswords still reign supreme. How have they survived — and even expanded — in our digital age? What goes into a good puzzle, and will computer techniques take over? Daniel chats with author Natan Last about his book Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle.
Timestamps
- Intros: 0:35
- News: 4:42
- Related or Not: 22:13
- Interview with Natan Last: 37:56
- Words of the Week: 1:24:52
- Comment: 1:53:37
- The Reads: 1:55:31
- Outtakes: 2:02:50
127: Oh (with Maia Chao, Kelly Wright, and Caitlin Green)
The "Oh" show was an experimental linguistics performance lecture. It happened in June 2025 at Creative Time HQ in New York City. Actors, musicians, and audience came together (with at least one linguist!) to …
Shownotes
The "Oh" show was an experimental linguistics performance lecture. It happened in June 2025 at Creative Time HQ in New York City. Actors, musicians, and audience came together (with at least one linguist!) to act out dialogues from conversational analysis, and have fun with language. Are there more ways we can perform linguistics? We're talking with artist and linguistics fan Maia Chao.
Timestamps
- Cold open: 0:00
- Intros: 0:38
- News: 7:16
- Related or Not: 40:03
- Interview with Maia Chao: 55:08
- Words of the Week: 1:30:31
- Bonus chat with Caitlin Green: groyper: 1:54:40
- The Reads: 2:07:48
- Outtakes: 2:14:59
125: Friends With Words (live with Martha Barnette and friends)
Martha Barnette is one half of the linguistics podcast A Way With Words, and author of the new book Friends With Words: Adventures in Languageland. Her lifelong love of language has led her through some of the …
Shownotes
Martha Barnette is one half of the linguistics podcast A Way With Words, and author of the new book Friends With Words: Adventures in Languageland.
Her lifelong love of language has led her through some of the toughest questions lexicography has to offer, and she's answering questions from our live listening audience.
Why do we FALL pregnant? How can we use PRETTY to say something is "pretty ugly"? And once and for all, why do we really say "the whole nine yards"?
Video for this episode: https://youtu.be/aPikLncj2xI
Timestamps (audio)
Start: 0:00 Cold open: 0:27 Intros: 2:02 Chat with Martha about Friends With Words: 5:42 On Martha's life and language: 11:10 Related or Not: 36:27 Questions for Martha: 56:25 The Reads: 1:25:40
124: Algospeak (with Adam Aleksic)
Creators have to be mindful of what to say and what not to say in their content. This affects the language we're exposed to — and what we say IRL. But it's part of an old process. Popular LingToker Adam Aleksic …
Shownotes
Creators have to be mindful of what to say and what not to say in their content. This affects the language we're exposed to — and what we say IRL. But it's part of an old process. Popular LingToker Adam Aleksic breaks it down. He's the author of the new book Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language.
Timestamps
- Start: 0:00
- Intros: 1:42
- News: 12:25
- Related or Not: 29:59
- Interview with Adam Aleksic: 44:07
- Words of the Week: 1:15:10
- Comment: 1:37:56
- The Reads: 1:39:56
123: Conscious Language (with Karen Yin)
We've all seen style guides that tell us what to say and what not to say. Has a style guide ever asked you what you wanted to say? Or challenged you to examine your thinking? This one does. It's the Conscious …
Shownotes
We've all seen style guides that tell us what to say and what not to say. Has a style guide ever asked you what you wanted to say? Or challenged you to examine your thinking? This one does. It's the Conscious Style Guide by Karen Yin, and she joins us for this episode.
Timestamps
- Cold open: 0:00
- Intros: 0:35
- News: 5:52
- Related or Not: 31:13
- Interview with Karen Yin: 48:43
- Words of the Week: 1:30:10
- Comments: 1:44:07
- The Reads: 1:47:45
- Outtake: 1:54:06
122: The Interaction Engine (with Stephen Levinson)
How did language start? What do all languages have in common? How does language really work? Many answers have been posed to these questions, but one thing is for sure: interaction is the combustion chamber …
Shownotes
How did language start? What do all languages have in common? How does language really work? Many answers have been posed to these questions, but one thing is for sure: interaction is the combustion chamber where everything happens. We're having a chat with linguistic lion Stephen Levinson, author of The Interaction Engine.
Timestamps
- Introductions: 0:19
- These fascinating facts about language will make you (or Dr Levinson) a hit at any party: 3:47
- The mechanics of speech production: 06:01
- What's going on when we're talking or listening? 8:46
- Cultural differences in conversational norms: 20:33
- Universals of interaction: 22:10
- Metaphors of space may have been a motivator for language: 25:53
- The role of gesture in language development: 28:47
- Cooperation and empathy in language: 34:59
- What one thing explains the most about language?: 45:56
Disclosure: Hedvig is employed at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, where Dr Levinson is an emeritus director.
121: Learning from LLMs (with Adele Goldberg)
How do large language models (LLMs) do their thing, and it is anything like how we do our thing? What can we learn about human language from this software? The answer might involve constructions — pairings of …
Shownotes
How do large language models (LLMs) do their thing, and it is anything like how we do our thing? What can we learn about human language from this software? The answer might involve constructions — pairings of form and meaning that we use to make language. And here to discuss it with us is constructionist pioneer and linguistic legend, Professor Adele Goldberg.
Timestamps
- Intros: 1:14
- News: 7:13
- Related or Not: 34:18
- Interview with Adele Goldberg: 46:40
- Words of the Week: 1:38:19
- The Reads: 1:56:50
- Bonus chat with Adele Goldberg: 2:03:16
- Outtakes: 2:13:11
120: Gesture! ✨👐✨ (with Lauren Gawne)
Gesture is everywhere. We wave our hands when we talk, even if we're alone. Signed languages are, of course, full languages that use gesture. And it could even be argued that emoji are the online equivalent of …
Shownotes
Gesture is everywhere. We wave our hands when we talk, even if we're alone. Signed languages are, of course, full languages that use gesture. And it could even be argued that emoji are the online equivalent of gesture. It's inescapable. And why would we want to do without it, when it's so useful? So we're talking about gesture and language with Dr Lauren Gawne, author of Gesture: A Slim Guide.
Our chat with Lauren is available on video, so you can see all the gestures! Link: https://youtu.be/kHPgyXhl8Kk
Timestamps
- Intros: 0:19
- News: 7:42
- Related or Not: 23:20
- Interview with Lauren Gawne: 44:10
- Words of the Week: 1:32:53
- The Reads: 1:48:10
119: Eurovision Goes to Uni (with Paulette van der Voet and Solveig Bollig)
It's Eurovision season! We love to talk about what we can learn about language from this international song contest, but even we didn't realise that there was so much to learn. Language choice, language policy …
Shownotes
It's Eurovision season! We love to talk about what we can learn about language from this international song contest, but even we didn't realise that there was so much to learn. Language choice, language policy, language and gender and metaphor — and all of this has been packed into a unit at Umeå University: Linguistics and the Eurovision Song Contest. Paulette van der Voet and Solveig Bollig are heading up the course, and they're here to tell us all about it… and nerd out with Hedvig besides.
Timestamps
- Cold open: 0:00
- Intros: 0:39
- News: 7:39
- Related or Not: 26:41
- Interview with Paulette and Solveig: 38:53
- Words of the Week: 1:30:08
- Comment from John: 1:49:18
- The Reads: 1:53:53
- Outtakes: 2:02:25
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