Tag: bill-labov

Lingthusiasm was featured in the New York Times’ list of 5 Podcasts for Word Nerds! And here’s print evidence that it happened. 

The show is often as much about social habits as it is about language — one memorable episode had Gawne and McCulloch discuss “lopsided conversations,” those verbal interactions that can go off the rails if one person is either dominating or not contributing enough. It’s a fascinating listen that will change the way you see everyday communications.

The rest of the list had four other indie linguisticsy/languagey podcasts whose creators we also know and like: The Allusionist, Words Unravelled, The Vocal Fries, and A Way With Words. Check them all out!

Besides that, I ran a little accidental A/B test on how to market your pop linguistics book.

And I answered linguistics questions from Ella Hubber, Tom Lum, and Caroline Roper on an episode of their very fun pop science podcast Let’s Learn Everything. 

73: Linguist Gretchen McCulloch, Latin in Science, and Internet Linguistics

I also enrolled in my third American Sign Language class, ASL 103 with Deaf instructor Hariklia (Lia) Mavroudis, again through the Lethbridge Layton Mackay Rehabilitation Centre (LLMRC) in Montreal. Back in person again after 102 on Zoom, which was a huge relief. It’s also been fun this semester to start recognizing some people from previous classes and events! 

Lingthusiasm

Lingthusiasm put out the usual six episodes — including a bonus episode about my last summer’s travel and visits from Emily M. Bender and Let’s Learn Everything.

• OooOooh~~ our possession episode oOooOOoohh 👻
• Xenolinguistics 👽 (bonus)
• Helping computers decode sentences — Interview with Emily M. Bender
• Linguistic Travel — Estonia, Mundolingua, and Martha’s Vineyard (bonus)
• A politeness episode, if you please
• Metaphors be with you! Lingthusiasm x Let’s Learn Everything crossover episode (bonus) 

We also added linguist, technical editor, and generally excellent human Leah Velleman to the Lingthusiasm team! Her first project was sprucing up the Lingthusiasm merch page (check it out, it’s much easier to navigate now!), and you may also notice her around here helping me with these newsletters, for which I’m very grateful.

Remembering Bill Labov

The great sociolinguist Bill Labov passed away. The internet remembered him as it does, with eulogies and also silly jokes about his best-known study:

• Imagine him “in heaven, doing research on the pronunciation of ‘pearly.’“
• Treatment is simple. Great sociolinguist Bill Labov is in town.

Or, for a serious (but still entertaining) look at why he was so great, listen to Lingthusiasm’s episode about the bunny paper. 

Favorite data

New weird utterances! Someone said these!

• “Shout out to the top 5 skies in the world, pie in the, reach for the, excuse me while I kiss the, Lucy in the, and Blue.” (Island violation)
• “Martyred porn squirrel” (Novel utterance)
• “Stay fresh, cheese bags” (Novel utterance)
• “In loving memory of Nicole Campbell, who never saw a dog and didn’t smile” (Structural ambiguity)
• “To outtasightouttamind” (Verbing)

And several someones have already been saying these! To my great delight, they actually are or were common expressions.

• “We will certainly get that piglet washed” (Dutch)
• “Repussying” (Brazilian Portuguese)
• “How is thy life-condition?” (Old English)
• “Boop” (Modern English — now in the Cambridge Dictionary!)

Reading and listening

Here are some things I enjoyed this season:

• Babel-17
• A Hoard of Infinite Meanings
• “A Terrible Irony”: How the Media Lost Trust
• I put the glamor back into grammar, a “deadpan German linguistics bop”

Tweets and blog posts

• Oh hey, my tweet is in this xkcd.com What If video

• The only version of the ghoti meme I’ll accept from now on
• Linguists don’t really know what a “word” is and we don’t really mind
• Mark Hamill signing his name Mar🐫 because in English /p, t, k/ sounds at the beginning of a stressed syllable are pronounced aspirated
• The many benefits of alt text
• Ooh, there’s a word for absence of inner speech/voice now! 
• A thread of “Hidden gems” in lingcomm

This quarter’s image is a pumpkin I carved for Halloween. Featuring two shapes, a round, blobby one and an angular, spikey one. If you had to assign the names kiki and bouba to these shapes, which one would be which?