In September, I interviewed Steven Pinker about his new book, The Sense of Style, for which I also wrote a review.
I wrote about how rhythmic differences in language affect their poetry for Schwa Fire, season 1, issue 3 (working title: “Why Shakespeare didn’t write haikus”). Normally Schwa Fire is by subscription, but this one is available for free, at least for now, so do check it out!
I also wrote advice for writing pop linguistics articles. It’s of general interest, but you should especially check it out if you’re planning on pitching to me for Lexicon Valley. And another advice post for going to undergrad and student-focussed conferences.
Two interviews with me are now online: one with Grammarist and another as part of a longer article by Kyle Chayka on doge and the future of meme culture, up at Matter.
Continuing with Wikipedia editathon plans: the announcement is now up on the LSA’s website. I’m also organizing an editathon to happen in Montreal this fall, as a sort of trial run for the bigger LSA one. Not much about this online yet, but everyone I’ve talked to so far has been very excited about it!
Highlights of my recent writing for Lexicon Valley:
- 7 ways to fake-pronounce any foreign language
- How do you rhyme in a sign language?
- Ikea’s bookbook, soy milk vs milk milk, and like-liking: contrastive focus reduplication
- Why does English use “iambic pentameter” and other Greek poetic terms? (follow-up)
- Why do pirates talk like that?
- Free “tudoring” and a moist owlet: the 5 t sounds of English, explained with internet puns (technical follow-up)
Selected blog posts:
- The distinction between Miss and Mrs is younger than you’d think
- How Germans actually pronounce English words
- Why Æthelred was called the Unready, and other Anglo-Saxon royal baby names
- I revive two classics from SpecGram: Lingdoku and the nasal-ingressive voiceless velar trill
- Several discussion posts on the differences between written and spoken French and the passé simple in French fanfiction and rough stats on the passé simple in French fanfiction
- A great comic on texting language from xkcd
- Code blending among bimodal bilinguals
- Softened swear words in various Romance languages
- The brutal means by which children stop speaking their mother tongues
Gretchen McCulloch 