News

July 2019: Because Internet is published and makes the NYT Bestseller list!

Gretchen McCulloch

There was a New York Times Daily review of Because Internet (paper version!). Here’s one of the very nice things that reviewer Jennifer Szalai had to say about it:

McCulloch is such a disarming writer — lucid, friendly, unequivocally excited about her subject — that I began to marvel at the flexibility of the online language she describes, with its numerous shades of subtlety.

There was also SO MUCH other media about the book, including reviews in Time, the Economist, The New Yorker, and more; excerpts or interviews in Wired, Slate, Vox, Salon, Vice, and more; and interviews on NPR All Things Considered and Science Friday, Slate’s Lexicon Valley, Grammar Girl, The Allusionist and the Cracked Podcast, just to pick a few. (Full list with hyperlinks below.) A great little ad also ran next to the NYT crossword puzzle in the print edition (photo).

As if that weren’t enough, Because Internet also hit the New York Times bestseller list at #9 in its first week! Huge, huge thanks to everyone who preordered it and bought it during the first week which made this happen.

I did a book launch party in Montreal with Argo Bookshop at the Atwater Library! I was especially excited about the cake with the cover of my book on it which allowed me to literally eat my words and the internet-themed youtube playlist that twitter helped us put together to project on a screen during the party. Many thanks to all the people who attended!

I did a collaboration with youtuber Tom Scott! The first video in this new round of Language Files videos is “why typing like this is sometimes okay.” and is directly based on Chapter 4 of Because Internet! Stay tuned for more Language Files videos with Tom and our new collaborator Molly Ruhl in future months.

Everything is also coming up Because Internet on Lingthusiasm! Our main episode was about the connections between gesture and emoji, aka the behind the scenes story of the part of the book where my podcast cohost Lauren Gawne makes a cameo! The bonus episode was about familects, not the book, but we also released a Special Offer on Patreon to get signed bookplate stickers. Our academic paper about emoji as digital gesture in the journal Language@Internet also came out this month, and Lauren wrote an accessible summary version of it for The Conversation which got picked up by Quartz. (We were very pleased to have to disclose that our Lingthusiasm patrons helped fund this research.) Also, I now have an Erdős number.

When people ask what it’s like to have this book I’ve been working on for five years finally come out, the best analogy that I can think of is that it’s like having it constantly be my birthday for the past several weeks: I’ve been hearing from so many people from all corners of my life who are excited to have spotted BECAUSE INTERNET in their local bookstore or library, or to have heard me on the radio or their favourite podcast. I haven’t always been able to reply to everyone individually, but I truly appreciate how many communities have claimed this book’s success as their own.

In non-book-related news, I also went to California to do a linguistics outreach event at the LSA Summer Institute in UC Davis, consisting of a lingwiki Wikipedia editathon focussing on articles about underrepresented languages in the afternoon, and in the evening doing a talk about effective communication of linguistics to a general audience and MCing the 3 Minute Thesis event. (A thread from an interesting talk I attended on language tech.)

Here is the truly staggering media list just for July alone for Because Internet, all 65 (!) items:

National Radio

National Print/Top Online

Newsletters:

Podcasts:

Local Print/Online/Radio:

Selected tweets:

Selected blog posts:

This month’s photo is real paper proof that Because Internet made the New York Times Bestseller list! because internet nyt bestseller list with emoji.jpg

June 2019: First finished copy of Because Internet, plus fandom tags on Wired

Gretchen McCulloch

Because Internet was reviewed in Science Magazine, Real Simple, Booklist, and Library Journal, in addition to last month’s reviews. Here’s what Science Magazine says about it:

A compelling narrative rich with examples from her own online activities, a healthy dose of humor, and plenty of cat memes… the breadth of topics covered—from conversation analysis to meme culture to the development of texting as we now know it—makes this book useful, engaging, and enjoyable.

I did book-related threads about expanding the linguistics bookshelf and the public lending right and how you can order a book you’re excited about from your local public or academic library.

Because Internet is out on July 23rd! That’s just over a week away! Preorders all count towards a book’s first week sales, and the first week is the best chance that a book has of getting on any kind of bestseller list, so if you’re planning on getting it, I’d greatly appreciate if you got it now!

I’m also having a book launch party in Montreal on July 31 — if you’re in the Montreal area, I hope to see you there! You can get free tickets here via Eventbrite.

My latest article for Wired was about the Archive of Our Own and how fans are better than tech at organizing information online. (Plus: a delightful coda.) Excerpt:

On AO3, users can put in whatever tags they want. (Autocomplete is there to help, but they don’t have to use it.) Then behind the scenes, human volunteers look up any new tags that no one else has used before and match them with any applicable existing tags, a process known as tag wrangling.

Wrangling means that you don’t need to know whether the most popular tag for your new fanfic featuring Sherlock Holmes and John Watson is Johnlock or Sherwatson or John/Sherlock or Sherlock/John or Holmes/Watson or anything else. And you definitely don’t need to tag your fic with all of them just in case. Instead, you pick whichever one you like, the tag wranglers do their work behind the scenes, and readers looking for any of these synonyms will still be able to find you.

This month’s main episode of Lingthusiasm was about why spelling is hard — but also hard to change (with a great tweet about the French circonflexe accent and English) and the bonus episode was North, left, or towards the sea — direction words with Alice Gaby (plus a thread about direction words).

I read the first two Murderbot Diaries novellas and livetweeted my linguistic thoughts about them. I also read This Is How You Lose The Time War, which I was not able to livetweet yet since it was still an advance copy, but it was excellent and I strongly recommend it.

I’m featured in Lauren Gawne’s Linguistics Jobs series at Superlinguo, talking about how I became an internet linguist.

Selected tweets:

Selected blog posts:

This month’s featured image is the first finished copy of Because Internet, which was sent to me in the mail! It looks like a real book! (Just hanging out on one of our Lingthusiasm esoteric symbols scarves, which matches it perfectly.) Front and back photos, because I can’t resist.

May 2019: audiobook recording and early reviews of Because Internet, plus esoteric symbols scarves

Gretchen McCulloch

I spent many hours this month in a soundbooth, recording my own audiobook for Because Internet! Unsurprisingly, doing all this talking gave me some linguistic thoughts, which I tweeted about here, including finally needing to take a side on the gif pronunciation wars, how to read keysmash out loud, loll versus ell oh ell, mIxEd CaPiTaLiZaTiOn, reading emoji out loud, putting on voices, linguist flexes, writing versus speaking, and my favourite linguist name fact. (Blog post version.)

The Because Internet audiobook is available on July 23, the same day as the hardcover and ebook versions, and you can preorder the audiobook on many platforms by following the links here!

Reviews are starting to come in for Because Internet: trade reviews from Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly (starred), and on recommended summer book lists for Elle Magazine, Esquire and Wired. Here’s an excerpt from PW:

McCulloch, writer of the “Resident Linguist” column for Wired and podcast cohost of Lingthusiasm, debuts with a funny and fascinating examination of the evolution of language in the digital age. Exploring everything from capitalization and punctuation to emojis and gifs, her book breaks down the structure of “internet language” in a precise and engaging way.

This month’s main episode of Lingthusiasm was You heard about it, but I was there – evidentiality (it also comes in a meme version), and the bonus episode was about animal communication. We also introduced new Lingthusiasm merch! Including esoteric symbols scarves, mugs, and notebooks, mugs and notebooks of our IPA scarf and tree diagram scarf designs, and onesies saying Little Longitudinal Language Acquisition Project. (Plus: a twitter thread about the obscure symbols fandom.)

My BAHfest talk about weird English spelling reform is now online. Recommended if you like Unicode jokes.

I’ve now been blogging at All Things Linguistic for 7 years! Here are my favourite posts from the past year and a retrospective thread on what blogging taught me about research and writing.

Selected tweets:

Selected blog posts:

 

This photo is from the soundbooth where I recorded the Because Internet audiobook, complete with MANY BEVERAGES.

because internet recording studio redacted

Top posts from 7 years of All Things Linguistic

Gretchen McCulloch

Cross-posted from All Things Linguistic. 

It’s my seven year blogiversary! Wow! Let’s celebrate by looking back at some of my favourite posts from the past year:

Wired Resident Linguist column

I started a column about internet linguistics at Wired this year! Here are my columns so far:

Internet linguistics

Other linguistics

Things about languages

Memes and humour

Linguistics jobs

Lists and how to

Lingthusiasm

We had another year of Lingthusiasm episodes!

  1. What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles
  2. This, that, and the other thing – Determiners
  3. When nothing means something
  4. Making books and tools speak Chatino – Interview with Hilaria Cruz
  5. Every word is a real word
  6. Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization
  7. Words for family relationships – Kinship terms
  8. How languages influence each other – Interview with Hannah Gibson on Swahili, Rangi, and Bantu languages
  9. The verb is the coat rack that the rest of the sentence hangs on
  10. Why do we gesture when we talk?
  11. Pop culture in Cook Islands Māori – Interview with Ake Nicholas
  12. You heard about it but I was there – Evidentials

And another year of Lingthusiasm bonus episodes:

  1. Forensic linguistics
  2. Homonyms, homophones, and homographs
  3. Emoji, Gesture, and the International Congress of Linguists – behind the scenes on the linguistics conference circuit
  4. Hyperforeignisms
  5. Bringing up bilingual babies
  6. What’s it really like at academic conferences?
  7. Q&A about old words, ears, Australian English, and more
  8. Naming people (and especially babies)
  9. How the internet is making English better (liveshow from Melbourne)
  10. Adapting your language to other people
  11. How do radio announcers know how to pronounce all the names? With guest Tiger Webb
  12. Talking with dogs, horses, ravens, dolphins, bees, and other animals

We also released more Lingthusiasm merch: scarves with tree diagrams and esoteric symbols on them, all the scarf designs as notebooks and mugs, Space Babies, and linguist baby onesies!

Book: Because Internet

Many exciting announcements related to Because Internet, my book in defence of internet language, happened this year!

  1. The book is heading into copyedits!
  2. BECAUSE INTERNET is available for preorder!
  3. Galleys of BECAUSE INTERNET are arriving with reviewers
  4. An early review of BECAUSE INTERNET (“me reading this was basically galaxy brain”)
  5. Thoughts from reading the audiobook of Because Internet: on pronouncing gif, lol, and keysmash

Because Internet will be coming out on July 23 — that’s only 2 months away! You can make it appear as a delightful surprise for your future self (and signal to the publisher that people are interested in linguistics so they should print lots of copies) by preordering it here.

Haven’t been with me this whole time? You can see my favourite posts of year one, year two, year three, year four, year five, and year six. For shorter updates, follow me on twitter as a person or as my blog, or for a monthly newsletter with highlights, subscribe at my website.

April 2019: Coding in English and new Because Internet cover photos

Gretchen McCulloch

My latest article for Wired is: Coding is for everyone — as long as you speak English. (I also made a Glitch remix of the first website for it). Here’s a quote from the article:

In theory, you can make a programming language out of any symbols. The computer doesn’t care. The computer is already running an invisible program (a compiler) to translate your IF orinto the 1s and 0s that it functions in, and it would function just as effectively if we used a potato emoji 🥔 to stand for IF and the obscure 15th century Cyrillic symbol multiocular O ꙮ to stand for. The fact that programming languages often resemble English words like body or if is a convenient accommodation for our puny human meatbrains, which are much better at remembering commands that look like words we already know.

But only some of us already know the words of these commands: those of us who speak English.

This month’s Lingthusiasm main episode was an interview with Ake Nicholas about making pop culture resources to get kids excited about Cook Islands Māori (transcript), and the bonus episode was about how radio announcers know how to pronounce all the names (an interview with Tiger Webb from our Sydney liveshow).

In news about my book, an early review of Because Internet said that “me reading this was basically galaxy brain” (<3) and I was quoted in this article in The Cut, talking about the importance of linguistic styleshifting.

I started getting ready to record the Because Internet audiobook (which I’m doing myself!), updated my cover photo to include the book and got an idea for how to sign people’s copies. I also compiled my best memes and behind-the-scenes bits about Because Internet so far into a convenient twitter moment.

In other books (specifically lingfic), I tweeted assorted thoughts about the linguistic worldbuilding in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and its sequels (thread).

Somehow I got namechecked in the hovertext of an SMBC comic, so that’s a lifegoal accomplished that I never knew I had.

Selected tweets:

Selected blog posts:

This month’s image is one of my fancy new social media cover photos featuring Because Internet!

BecauseInternet_FacebookCover_cropped

March 2019: Gesture video for Lingthusiasm, #BAHfest, and BECAUSE INTERNET in the mail

Gretchen McCulloch

I gave a humorous speech at the Bad Ad-hoc Hypothesis fest (BAHfest MIT) about the very logical (!) reasons to make English spelling less logical. I’m told that there will be video eventually — for now, my slides are here.

This month’s Lingthusiasm episode was about why we gesture when we talk, and we also made it available as our very first video episode so you can see the gestures! Many thanks to our Patreon supporters who enabled us to experiment with video! The bonus episode was Do you adjust the way you talk to match other people? Linguistic Accommodation with special guest our producer Claire Gawne.

I was quoted in articles about the xx email signoff in the New York Times, about the origin of the word “emoji” in Science Friday (NPR), and about business speak and corporate jargon for the BBC.

I was a guest on Spirits Podcast, a boozy podcast about myths and legends, talking about names and folklore! I also judged A Word A Day’s 25th anniversary pangram contest (the winner? “Emoji having been popularized, texts acquire wacky faces.”)

I livetweeted my thoughts on The Raven Tower, a new novel by Ann Leckie that has many cool linguistic worldbuilding elements!

Selected tweets:

Selected blog posts:

This month’s photo is of an advance copy of BECAUSE INTERNET arriving at reviewers, along with a printed-out tweet on the package!

because internet with envelope tweet

February 2019: Predictive text meme in Wired and galleys of Because Internet

Gretchen McCulloch

My latest Wired article is about the appeal of the predictive text meme: we’ve gone from Damn You Autocorrect to treating the strip of three predicted words as a sort of wacky but charming oracle. Plus: I’ve officially got a Wired author sketch now!

I was also quoted in the Huffington Post about how we use okay vs ok vs k in workplace communication and profiled in Stylist France magazine (print, in French).

In Because Internet news, I tweeted some novelty brand twitter accounts about my book, and some of them actually replied! I also made an emoji version of the Because Internet cover ✨, and there’s now a Goodreads page for Because Internet and for me as an author, if you’d like to register your interest in structured data format!

The latest Lingthusiasm main episode was about a new metaphor for verbs and sentences: the verb is the coat rack which the rest of the sentence hangs on (transcript). I also did a lingcomm meta thread about how we go about making a “technical topic explained in a nontechnical way” episode like this. The bonus episode was about how the internet is making English better — it’s a live recording from our Melbourne show, so you can feel like you’re in a friendly group of lingthusiasts from the comfort of your own couch!

I also updated my website, including a shiny new theme, a more detailed page for the book, a bio page, and an updated contact page.

Selected tweets:

Selected blog posts:

This month’s photo is of a bound galley copy of BECAUSE INTERNET — the first time I got to see my book looking like a real book! The inside still has some minor typos and other revisions, but this is the version that will be sent out to reviewers so that reviews can come out at the same time as the book in July.

because internet galley in front of a plant.jpg

January 2019: Emoji kids, book cards, and #LSA2019

Gretchen McCulloch

I wrote an article for Wired about preliterate kids texting with emoji. Plus, some bonus adorable examples that didn’t fit in the article.

I wrote an update post about how my book on internet language is going! The book now has a publicist, Shailyn Tavella and you can email her at stavella@prh.com for questions about review copies and interviews.

I also dropped by the fancy new Riverhead office in the Penguin building, made a few comments about Unicode and capitalization, and did a late-stage book editing pass involving reading the whole book out loud to myself which made me feel like David Attenborough.

At the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (this year in New York City), I judged the 5 Minute Linguist competition (video of all the talks here) and did a lingwiki Wikipedia editathon with a focus on underrepresented language articles for the UN International Year of Indigenous Languages. Threads from the LSA about bimodal (signed/spoken) bilingualism, linguistics high school teachers, and the UN International Year of Indigenous Languages (kickoff events).

The main episode of Lingthusiasm was an interview with Hannah Gibson about language contact and Bantu languages, and the bonus episode was about naming people (and especially babies). Plus: when I found out that my cohost was embarking on a new longitudinal language acquisition project, there was only one gift I could give her.

Selected tweets:

Selected blog posts:

This month’s image is the stack of cards with my book’s cover on them that I got from my publisher to give out at the LSA. If you see me at a conference between now and when BECAUSE INTERNET is out, I’m happy to give you one too! Or stop by Argo Bookshop if you’re in Montreal to get a card and/or preorder a signed copy.

because internet book cards.jpg

2018 Year in Review

Gretchen McCulloch

Cross-posted from my blog, All Things Linguistic. 

In 2018, I finished writing my book about internet language, which now has an official title (BECAUSE INTERNET) and publication date (July 23, 2019). You can preorder it here now and it will arrive as a delightful present from yourself halfway through the year!

I also started writing a column for Wired about internet language and went to Australia to do two Lingthusiasm liveshows.

Writing

My book about internet language officially has a title and publication date! Look for BECAUSE INTERNET: UNDERSTANDING THE NEW RULES OF LANGUAGE in July 2019, and you can also put your email address here to make sure you don’t miss when it’s out on social media.

I also began a column about internet language for Wired. My first two articles:

Lingthusiasm Podcast

For Lingthusiasm, my podcast with Lauren Gawne, we did our long-anticipated liveshows in Sydney and Melbourne! We also released new Lingthusiasm merch, including tree diagram scarves, rainbow IPA scarves, Space Baby art, and IPA ties.

We released 12 main episodes and 12 bonus episodes:

16. Learning parts of words –  Morphemes and the wug test
17. Vowel Gymnastics
18. Translating the untranslatable
19. Sentences with baggage – Presuppositions
20. Speaking Canadian and Australian English in a British-American binary
21. What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles
22. This, that and the other thing – determiners
23. When Nothing Means Something
24. Making books and tools speak Chatino – Interview with Hilaria Cruz
25. Every word is a real word
26.  Why C and G come in hard and soft versions, and more about palatal sounds
27. Words for family relationships: kinship terms

Bonus episodes:

11. We are all linguistic geniuses – Interview with Daniel Midgley
12. Creating languages for fun and learning
13. The grammar of swearing
14. The poetry of memes
15. Linguistics grad school advice
16. Forensic Linguistics
17. Homophones, homonyms, and homographs
18. Emoji, Gesture and The International Congress of Linguists
19. Hyperforeignisms
20. Bringing up bilingual babies
21. What’s it really like at academic conferences?
22. Q&A (with bonus video!) about the shape of your ears, very old words, and more

Media

A few select media articles:

I also started a personal/professional instagram account, and started updating the accounts for All Things Linguistic and Lingthusiasm more frequently: go check those out if your instagram feed needs more linguistics in it.

You can also follow All Things Linguistic on Mastodon for a daily linguistics post there.

Talks and conferences

I gave a talk about emoji as gesture at EmojiCon in Brooklyn and about emoji sequences as beat gestures at Emoji2018 at Stanford.

I went to a broad range of interesting conferences this year: XOXO, PatreCon, LangFest, Scintillation, Automatic Speech Recognition for Endangered Languages (ASREL retreat), McGill Symposium on Indigenous Languages, and the annual meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR).

While in Australia, I gave workshops on LingComm at the annual meeting of the Australian Linguistic Society and at the Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language summer school, in addition to a sold-out public lecture on internet linguistics at the summer school. I also gave talks about emoji as gesture at four universities: Sydney, Melbourne, Monash, and La Trobe.

At the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, I organized a panel called Language in the Public Ear: Linguistics Outreach via Podcasts and Radio, for which my cohost Lauren Gawne represented Lingthusiasm. I also organized the linguistics Wikipedia editathon with Lauren Collister, and stepped in at the last minute to co-host the Five Minute Linguist competition with Lane Greene of the Economist, in addition to our previously scheduled judging, due to weather issues.

Selected blog posts

I hit my 6-year blogiversary! Here are a few of my favourite posts from 2018:

Continue reading “2018 Year in Review” →

December 2018: BECAUSE INTERNET preorders, Adelaide, Spain, and the most phonetic restaurant name

Gretchen McCulloch

The preorder link for my book went up this month! You can now preorder Because Internet as a delightful surprise for your future self and to let the publisher know that people are interested in internet linguistics, either online by following the links here or by contacting your local indie bookstore. (Want a hint of what’s inside? Today in Things I Tell My Copyeditor: “stet, this is a Unicode joke”)

The Lingthusiasm main episode was about words for family relationships, or kinship terms, and the bonus episode was a behind the scenes Q&A episode where we answered your questions about the shape of the ear, very old words, and more. (The Q&A is also available as a special video episode for patrons!)

I finished my trip to Australia with a visit to Adelaide for the annual meeting of the Australian Linguistic Society, where I did a workshop on linguistics communication (#lingcomm).

I then ended the year in Spain!

I started a personal/professional instagram account, so if your instagram feed needs more linguistics in it, you can now follow @gretchen.mcculloch there.

I posted my year in review blog post on All Things Linguistic (and a tongue-in-cheek year in review tweet).

Selected tweets:

Selected blog posts:

This month’s photo is from Adelaide, where a group of linguists naturally chose to have dinner at the restaurant with the most, er, phonetic name.

phonatic restaurant adelaide