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.
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!
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:
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?
In the final quarter of 2023, I went to NWAV51 in Queen’s, New York in October and to Patreon’s CreatorFest in Los Angeles in November. No talks from me at either, just attending interesting sessions!
Btw people should totally commission me to read their weird nerd humour audiobooks, today the tech said "you know, sometimes I end up sorta zoning out during a recording but with this one I was laughing too hard to even get close"I would enjoy doing this a couple times a year, I'm just saying
Update: I read The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum because several people in these replies (including @annleckie.com) told me to and I am pleased to report that it is indeed doing delightfully weird things with gender (even if not precisely bouba/kiki)
Blind bisexual goose named Thomas who spend six years in a love triangle with two swans and helped raise 68 babies dies at the ripe old age of 40 (novel sentences)
Just remembering that line from Puff the Magic Dragon and how for years I thought that one day I would be grown up enough to understand what ceiling wax was for (waterproofing the roof? hanging down in aesthetic wax stalactites?)Well today I'm grown up and it's sealing waxSEALING WAX
This quarter’s image (also yes, these newsletters are quarterly now since monthly evidently wasn’t working) is from Patreon CreatorFest where I brought Lingthusiasm cards and bouba/kiki stickers to give out to people I met!
Gretchen McCulloch 
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