Tag: internet linguistics

June 2015: Bab.la Top 25 blogs, Internet sarcasm on The Toast, emoji interviews & more videos

Gretchen McCulloch

All Things Linguistic made Bab.la’s list of Top 25 Language Professionals Blogs.

I’m back on The Toast, writing about internet sarcasm. I also started writing for Dictionary.com – my first article was about ingressives: Can an inhaled word mean something? 

Articles for Mental Floss:

I’m quoted in this article on emoji by the Canadian Press, which appeared in CTVnews, Metro, and many other newspapers in Canada. I also did radio interviews about emoji for ABC (Perth, Australia) and CKTB 610 (Niagara, Canada), although I don’t think they’re online yet.

The three remaining videos that I co-wrote with Tom Scott went up:

The fourth video in LingVids went up, about reflexive pronouns and anaphora:

Selected blog posts:

In July, I’m heading to the LSA summer institute in Chicago where I’ll be running four linguistics Wikipedia editathons, on Wednesday afternoons. Follow the #lingstitute hashtag for general updates and the #lingwiki hashtag for the editathons — and feel free to participate from online!

Here’s a picture of the linguistics section at the Montague Bookmill, which was originally where I took the cover photo I use everywhere and which I revisited a while back:

montague bookmill linguistics shelf redux

May 2015: Emoji interviews, 3rd blogiversary, Language Files videos, and CLA #lingwiki

Gretchen McCulloch

I did several interviews on emoji this month: for Youth Radio on NPR, for The Fader, and for CNET, plus a few tweets about emoji that got quoted on News.Com.Au:

emoji language tweet

I organized the third #lingwiki editathon at the annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistics Association / Association canadienne de linguistique (ACL|CLA). We had 32 participants who edited a total of 43 articles – you can see the full report here. Many thanks to the sponsors, Wikimedia and the ACL|CLA, and of course to all the participants.

I launched a series of linguistics videos with YouTuber Tom Scott. We co-wrote five videos as a third season of his Language Files series — the first two went up in May, and the next three will go up in June.

The third video in LingVids, my previous collaborative videos project, also went up this month.

Articles for Mental Floss: Does this sentence sound incomplete, or?, “You” versus “u” as a formality distinction, and 15 ways to laugh online.

It was my third blogiversary on All Things Linguistic, so I posted a roundup of my favourite posts from the past year. Selected blog posts from this month:

And finally, here’s a photo of the linguistics section in Strand Books, from when I visited New York City this month. I’m especially pleased that they have separate sections for linguistics and etymology!

strand bookshelf

Top posts from 3 years of All Things Linguistic

Gretchen McCulloch

Cross-posted from All Things Linguistic.

It’s my third blogiversary! Let’s celebrate by looking back at some of my favourite posts:

Explanations

Linguist Humour

Anti-prescriptivism

Language activism

Linguistics and pop culture

Internet Language

Gender pronouns

Things about languages

Linguistics videos

#lingwiki

Resources

Haven’t been with me this whole time? It’s okay — you can see the highlights of year one and year two right here.

March 2015: internet language on Mental Floss & interviews, second #lingwiki, LingVids

Gretchen McCulloch

In March I started writing a new series on internet language for Mental Floss. My first post takes a look at your ability to even: Is “even” turning into a verb? Why is it so hard to “can even”?

I also did interviews for two articles on internet language: That Way We’re All Talking Now on Matter (follow-up comments here) and no capitalization is funnier on HuffPost Books.

I organized the second #lingwiki Wikipedia editathon, for which the central event took place online via the Twitter hashtag, but with in-person satellite editathons in Singapore (organized by Lauren Gawne), Canberra (organized by Hedvig Skirgard) and Madrid (organized by Manuel Alcántara Pia). A total of 24 participants from four continents participated, creating or improving 54 articles in 7 languages. Full details here, including a list of all articles edited. I also attended and helped facilitate at my local Art+Feminism editathon earlier in the month.

I jointly launched a new collaborative project, Ling Vids, a series of videos about linguistics. You can watch the first video below, on whether a sentence is more like a bracelet or a mobile:

Selected posts from All Things Linguistic

February 2015: On writing, Unravel interview, and March & July editathon plans

Gretchen McCulloch

I wrote about the differences between teaching, pop linguistics, and pop science, in which I also bid farewell to editing for Lexicon Valley, although you’ll still see my writing popping up there occasionally.

I did an interview in Unravel Magazine about popularizing linguistics and writing about internet language.

Lingstitute editathon news

The second #lingwiki will take place online on the last weekend of March, the 28-29, with the peak online hours being 7-10pm US/Canada-EDT = 7-10am Singapore time, etc. Lauren Gawne of Superlinguo is also organizing an in-person editathon in Singapore, and Hedvig of Humans Who Read Grammars is organizing one in Canberra, Australia. I’m also in touch with organizers in Spain, who are translating my original slides (benefits of Creative Commons licenses!) and planning an editathon for the first weekend of April.

For more in-person events, I confirmed with the organizers of the 2015 summer institute in Chicago that they’re interested in hosting some #lingwiki events. So we’ll be having four editathons, one each Wednesday afternoon, and I’ll also be running a seminar on guiding your class to edit Wikipedia during the first week, in case any Lingstitute instructors want to take advantage of it. If anyone who’s not going to be in Chicago wants to take advantage of the July linguistics energy around Wikipedia and edit yourself or organize an editathon, you can follow along the #lingwiki hashtag and do feel free to get in touch with me for organizing tips.

Selected posts from All Things Linguistic:

I also finally finished my linguistics in Cabin Pressure series, with a post on the final episode, Zurich.

A giant outdoor wug brite, courtesy of Montréal en Lumière.
A giant outdoor wug brite, courtesy of Montréal en Lumière.

January 2015: Tumblinguists, LSA editathon report, WOTY, interviews, and an excellent shelf of books

Gretchen McCulloch
Powell's linguistics section, continued

I started the year at the Linguistics Society of America’s annual meeting in Portland, Oregon, where I spoke on a panel about popularizing linguistics in online media. I represented tumblr and tumblinguists, and you can view my slides online here; I’m told there will also be a video online eventually, so I’ll link to that whenever it’s up. I also organized a Wikipedia editathon to improve linguistics-related articles, which had 27 participants and improved at least 41 articles. Editathon links:

I’m currently organizing a second editathon to take place online around the #lingwiki hashtag. Please fill out the doodle poll here if you want your time preferences/timezone to be taken into consideration when scheduling it.

Several interviews with me (and various other linguists) are now online:

And I’m not interviewed, but I’m one of the many linguists that you can spot in this Word of the Year newsclip from Al Jazeera.

I also wrote several posts about the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year vote on Lexicon Valley:

Selected blog posts

[Update: I forgot to mention that All Things Linguistic also now has a new theme, with a large header image like all the cool kids these days.]

Here’s a picture that I took in Portland at Powell’s Books — I’ve never seen such a large linguistics section at a general-audience bookstore (and this picture doesn’t even include all of it!). The linguistics section was pretty picked-over by the time I got there on Sunday, but I heard that several linguists found some good deals!

Powell's Portland linguistics section
Part of the linguistics section at Powell’s Books in Portland. They even separate out linguistics from usage guides and “fun facts about language” books. I’m a fan.