Can you hear them? Only if you're meant to. Political dogwhistles exploit lack of knowledge in one group to send a coded message to another group. But that's just the beginning. How are dogwhistles different from slurs? How do they licence behaviour? Do progressives dogwhistle? Dr Elin McCready is the author of Signaling Without Saying: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Dogwhistles.

We're also joined by Lizzy Hanks and Dr Jesse Egbert, who are working on the LANA-CASE corpus, a huge corpus of conversational English. It aims to bring representation to a diverse group of English speakers, and they're looking for contributors.

Dr Rikker Dockum is our special guest host.

Timestamps

• Intros: 0:00
• News: 3:01
• Interview with Lizzy Hanks and Jesse Egbert: 16:47
• Related or Not: 35:45
• Interview with Elin McCready: 45:57
• Words of the Week: 1:17:47
• The Reads: 1:39:43

There are lots of Englishes out there, but the way we approach varieties of English sets learners up to fail. How do we combat language ideologies out there in the world — and in our own minds? Dr Ruanni Tupas is the editor of an important new book: Investigating Unequal Englishes: Understanding, Researching and Analysing Inequalities of the Englishes of the World.

We're joined by our special guest host Dr Nicole Holliday, and we are tackling a torrent of words — political and not — that the current news cycle has thrown at us.

Timestamps

• Intros: 0:44
• Words of the Week (coconut, weird, brat): 12:41
• Related or Not: 55:25
• Interview with Ruanni Tupas: 36:36
• More Words of the Week (International Blue Screen Day / Crowdstrike, rawdogging, fedupedness, combining form -nomenon, fridgerton): 1:53:43
• Comments: 2:11:15
• The Reads: 2:13:47

What are your eyes doing when you describe a scene? It may depend on your language. 

New research from Dr Rachel Nordlinger and team shows that we do a lot of planning and scanning very quickly, and it follows the requirements of our language. She's studied Murrinhpatha, an Australian Aboriginal language, to see what its speakers do.

We’re talking words, and no one has a way with words like Grant Barrett. He’s here to tell us what it’s like at Dictionary.com, and what went down at the annual American Dialect Society Words of the Year 2023 vote. And perhaps he can help forestall Hedvig’s planned mass human extinction.

Also: World Endangered Writing Day is upon us! It’s a fantastic initiative, and author Tim Brookes of Endangered Alphabets is here to lay out the case for preserving writing systems.

The public has voted, and a winner has been decided! We're looking all the words chosen by the various dictionary bodies, and counting down our Words of the Week of the Year. 

And there's a very special interview with author, blogger, activist, and inventor of words Cory Doctorow.

What is a woman? Or a man? Or a chair, or a sandwich? Or anything, really?

"Gender critical" people are making language into a vector to attack the rights of trans people. They treat categories like man and woman as binary and obvious.

But cognitive linguistics has a response, in the form of a new paper in Nature Human Behaviour. Are categories concrete, or are they mental, social, or something else? How do we categorise objects at all? Author Dr Andrew Perfors brings the science on this episode.

We've got mail, and linguistic MVP Dr Nicole Holliday is here to help us sort some things out around here. And we chat about the state of lingcomm today.

• Why is dog sushi made FOR dogs, but duck sushi is made FROM ducks?
• What do we call it generally when companies try to improve their image by -washing?
• Is the term "MVP" becoming uncoupled from sports?
• Will vaping kill your vocal fry?
• Are shibboleths made on purpose, as a way of creating an in-group and an out-group?

Plus our favourite game: Related or Not!

Who wrote the Oxford English Dictionary? Sure, James Murray had a very important role as editor, but a small army of volunteers submitted hundreds of thousands of words on slips of paper to get the project off the ground. What were their stories, and why did they have such a relentless sense of mission for the OED?

Dr Sarah Ogilvie is sharing her research into their lives and times, and it's startling and wondrous. She's a lexicographer and author of The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary.

What’s happening with signed language in Argentina? How are terms for gender changing in the Spanish language? And are Zoomers making work language more casual?

Listener and friend of the pod Diego Diaz has put together a terrific bunch of language news and words for our edification and enjoyment.

Our accents are great! They represent our origins, our languages, our community, and our identity. But too many of us feel like we can't speak with our authentic voice. Accent prejudice is real.

Linguist and author Dr Rob Drummond joins us to explain all about accent and accentism. He's the author of a new book You're All Talk.

And Dr Robbie Love is joining us with his research about how the word fuck is changing in the speech of British teens. Spicy!

Our patrons are joining us live to give us their news, words, and stories. That's right, it's a Potluck episode! What's a "girl dinner"? What's the other name of India? And how is AI helping translate an ancient language?

Thanks to all our great patrons, and especially those who joined us for this episode.

Women's bodies, women's occupations, women's experiences. So often in history, the discourse about women has been by men, about women. And that means that women's words have been lost.

Dr Jenni Nuttall has charted the lost history of women's words in her new book Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women's Words, and she joins us for this episode.

What do signed languages have in common? How do oral languages influence signed languages? How do they influence each other? Here to answer these questions and many more, it's Dr Adam Schembri of the University of Birmingham.

You can watch our chat with Adam Schembri on video, with Christy Filipich doing Auslan interpretation.

That video is here:
https://youtu.be/GcV0218VJ2k

Also joining us as a special guest: Dr Mark Ellison.

Timestamps

• Intros: 0:38
• News: 3:33
• Related or Not: 54:15
• Interview with Adam Schembri: 1:05:31
• Words of the Week: 2:08:27
• Comments: 2:27:56
• The Reads: 2:31:21
• Listener comment: 2:39:33

Listeners have once again sent us some great questions, and we have answers!

• Why do we TALK SHIT and not SPEAK SHIT?
• Do we KEEP OUT, or STAY OUT?
• Why are so many acronyms three letters long?
• How do we break young people out of the prescriptivist mindset?
• Isn’t “folk etymology” just… etymology?
• Can you think of any anagrams that are also synonyms?

Plus our favourite game, Related or Not!

Daniel Midgley, Ben Ainslie, and Hedvig Skirgård

For decades, forensic linguists have been pushing back on harmful language ideologies, and fighting for better representation for linguistic minorities in the legal domain. We're talking to three legendary linguists who have written the definitive record of how the discipline has developed in Australia.

Also: why do male characters get more dialogue in video games? And how can this situation improve? The authors of a pioneering new study share their insights.

How do we make the discipline of linguistics — and our world — a more just, diverse, and equitable place? Why does our personal history and personal perspective matter when doing science? How do we build community? And what happens if we do nothing?

This episode is really kind of a mini-conference. We found some new work from linguists we admire, so we put out the word to our patrons and piled into a room!

We're hearing work from Dr Aris Clemons, Dr Caitlin Green, and Dr Rikker Dockum on this episode.

Why does everyone say OOO! when they see someone fall down? Why do we say YUM when we feed a baby? And what's the deal with fillers like UM?

For this episode we're talking about non-lexical vocalisations with Dr Eleonora Beier and Dr Emily Hofstetter. 

Also: linguists are diving into Grambank, a database with detailed information about grammatical features in over 2,500 languages. With its release, we're talking to project leaders Dr Russell Gray and our own Dr Hedvig Skirgård.

Also, Hedvig gives us our yearly Eurovision language update. Ben's not here, so he won't complain.

How can you tell if a news story is intended to deceive? In one well-known case of journalistic deception, there were tells that required machine learning to trace. We’re talking to author and computational linguist Jack Grieve about his new book, The Language of Fake News.

We're going deep into our Mailbag, and we're going to answer all your questions.

• Why do we say "here you go" when we give something to someone?
• Why can we reduce something to /sʌmʔ/?
• The thing is is, there are two IS there. Why?
• Some contractions seem to've appeared, and they look strange in writing. What other ones're out there?

When language was innovated, what happened next? How did it change our abilities — and our responsibilities — to each other? Dr Nick Enfield shares ideas from his new book, Consequences of Language.

Plus: Have large language models (like GPT) disproven a key tenet of the innateness of language? Dr Morten Christiansen takes us through the implications for nativism and language learning.

Here’s an entire show, curated by one of our most prolific contributors — newly minted speechie PharaohKatt!

She’s got news. She’s got words. She tries to stump us on Related or Not.

She even teaches us how to roll our R’s. Wow.

But best of all, she answers all our questions about speech and language pathology.

For this special live LingFest23 episode, we’ll again be voting on tricky language issues, and our votes will be binding on all English users for all time because that’s how language works.

• If you had to walk 10 kilometres “there and back”, how far away is the place?
• How many holes does a straw have?
• And if “Floyd and the chickens are outside”, is Floyd also a chicken?

And many more!

Noam Chomsky is one of the world's foremost thinkers, and his impact on linguistics is incalculable. Yet many people are only familiar with his political activism. What are his linguistic ideas, and why have they been so tenacious? 

To answer that question, Daniel had a delightful chat with generative syntactician and Chomsky fan Katie Martin.

We're honoured to have a chat with linguist and Uyghur language activist Abduweli Ayup, recipient of the 2024 Language Rights Defenders Award from the Global Coalition for Language Rights.

Timestamps

• Intros: 0:41
• News: 10:10
• Interview with Abduweli Ayup: 37:36
• Related or Not: 57:50
• Interview with Katie Martin: 1:06:56
• Words of the Week: 1:59:29
• The Reads: 2:15:53
• Outtakes: 2:22:21

We all have freedom of expression, but what are its limits — social and legal? And how have governments tried to curtail it? We’re talking through the implications of free speech with Dennis Baron. He’s the author of You Can’t Always Say What You Want: The Paradox of Free Speech.

The American Dialect Society Word of the Year has been chosen — and it’s a wonderful and terrible pick! Depending on who you’re talking to. In this episode, we’re talking about -USSY and all the words.

And we’re getting to our Mailbag, with our most intriguing research project ever: can you spot the pattern in the way Ben pronounces EITHER and NEITHER? Is there one?

In what was meant to be a casual chat, cognitive scientist Dr Mark Ellison answers galaxy-brain-level questions about how language works.

• Why aren't we more efficient with language?
• How do we know when something has gone wrong in a conversation?
• Why don't we just talk in a flat monotone all the time?
• Why do fairy tales start a certain way?
• Why is it so tiring to speak another language?

Fortunately, he helps us keep our eyes on the ball for this episode.

We're counting down our Words of the Year, as voted by you! We're joined by our friends and patrons, and they've brought us some words we missed. And we'll go through all the Words of the Year from dictionaries and language lovers, English and not.

Thanks to all our friends who joined us for this show, and to all our great patrons who have supported our work.

Video here: https://youtu.be/z1BmUixVNlY

ChatGPT has just landed. It can generate text that seems fluid, plausible, and (surprisingly) not total nonsense. It's got a lot of people wondering what's left for humans — and for the field of Natural Language Processing. Here to help us is computational linguist Daan van Esch.

Many expressions we use come from the nautical domain. But are they nautical? Are they really? We’ve got Chase Dalton from the US Naval History Podcast to shine a light on some of these expressions, and in some cases reveal the secret nautical origins of words we use every day.

US Naval History Podcast on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts 

A chat with Dr Kelly Wright, who’s been working on… well, really a lot. Kelly is at the juncture of a lot of areas we’re keen on.

Oxford’s effort to document African-American English? She’s been there.

Doing lexicography with the American Dialect Society? She’s on it.

The LSA’s social media committee? She… was on it.

And she’s been looking into a new unexplored area: people’s ideas about their own language knowledge.

But it’s not all easy. And Kelly is here to tell us about her view of linguistics… from the struggle pile.

Just two words, but they do so much. But what exactly? Here to answer that question is Dr Isabelle Burke, who has studied yeah-no in depth. She’s also going to help us with these Mailbag questions.

• Why is LIKE so resilient?
• Why can we say “I very much enjoy…” but not “I much enjoy…” or “I very enjoy…”?
• When is a loanword not a loanword?
• Do word processors have a problem with singular THEY?
• Why doesn’t English have diacritics?

Yes, linguistics is all through the world of sci-fi, but science fiction has had a surprising impact on linguistic research as well. Dr Hannah Little is cataloguing the ways in a new book, and she joins us for this episode.

It’s Ben, Hedvig, and Daniel all together in the same place for the first time. We’re talking about the state of the show, the state of linguistics communication, and where we are after all these years.

What's going on in Germany? How are people talking about gender in the German language, and how is freedom of expression being handled? We have a couple of German experts — linguist Rob Tegethoff and Ciarán of the podcast Corner Späti — to tell us why other languages were banned at protests in Berlin, and what right-wing activists get from involving language in their plans. 

Timestamps

Intros: 0:34
News: 5:16
Related or Not: 26:29
Interview with Rob and Ciarán: 44:37
Words of the Week: 1:46:42
The Reads: 2:02:50
Outtakes: 2:06:23

Language isn’t just for communication — it’s fun. For over a hundred years, crosswords have served as entertainment, and even been blamed for society’s ills. Turns out crosswords are serious business.

Author and illustrator of Letters to Margaret and crossword enthusiast Hayley Gold takes us into the history and the discussions happening in the world of crosswords — the Crossworld.

You can buy Hayley’s book Letters to Margaret at this link:
https://shop.lonesharkgames.com/collections/letters-to-margaret

In which we get together for a chat, talk about stuff we like, and — oh, yeah — answers a few questions from our great listeners.

• Other languages have a word for late morning, before noon. Why doesn’t English have one?
• Why is EW the sound some English speakers make when disgusted?
• Why can you have potatoes, but not broccolis?
• Who started calling the YouTube description the DOOBLEYDOO?
• Is it WHOA or WOAH?
• Why do we use capital i for the pronoun I?

Today, we communicate. But once, we didn’t. What had to happen in our brains to make communication possible? And why don’t other animals do it like we do? We talk to Dr Thom Scott-Phillips about his new work in the social and cognitive origins of communication.

And game creator Joshua Blackburn is going to test Daniel’s linguistic prowess with questions from the hottest game on Kickstarter, League of the Lexicon.

Our friends, listeners, and patrons give us so many great stories, news, and words, so for this live episode, we’re having them tell these language stories in their own words.

Thanks to PharaohKatt, Lord Mortis, Ariaflame, seejanecricket, Aristemo, O Tim, Ditte, Rodger, and Ben (not the host one).

Our listeners and patrons send in so many great ideas, stories, and words. For this episode, listener and prolific contributor Diego has put together an entire show for our edification.

• ASL may have changed to include copular BE
• What’s going on with French-only laws in Quebec?
• Why is an Indian airport broadcasting covid information in Sanskrit?
• And more.

Everyone’s favourite tabletop grammarian is back! It’s Ellen Jovin, proprietor of the Grammar Table. She dispenses grammar advice around New York City and the world, and now she’s written a book about her grammar adventures. Ellen is the author of Rebel With a Clause, and she joins us for this big episode.

It’s crude. It’s rude. And it’s a lot of fun. Slang has been with us for as long as people didn’t want others to understand what they were about. But what exactly is it? And has the nature of slang changed in our internet age?

Daniel is talking to eminent slang lexicographer Jonathon Green on this episode of Because Language.

Language titan Tiger Webb is helping us with our voluminous Mailbag.
Hedvig is giving her annual Eurovision language roundup.
And we’re sorting through the lexicon of the 2022 Australian election.

• Is MAYBE a compound word? What about ANOTHER, or GARBAGE?
• Are GONNA and WANNA portmanteaus?
• What does it take to be a linguist?

How is language like a game of charades? According to a new book, quite a lot. Charades players and language users improvise and work together to create meaning in a situation, and they get better at it as they reuse elements and build up patterns.

Drs Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater explain their vision of language to Daniel and Hedvig on this episode of Because Language.

We had the pleasure of an interview with two up-and-coming linguists, wanting to find out more about the show and linguistic communication. It was such a fun chat that we wanted to share it with you. Here's Daniel and Hedvig with Kitty Liu and Romany Amber.

Part of this chat also appears in magazine form (along with a lot of other really good articles) : https://issuu.com/u-lingua/docs/issue_8_forweb 

Thanks to Kitty and Romany for thinking of us, and thanks to U-Lingua for letting us make this audio public.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

How much can we really know about the words we use? What are the facts behind some of the most tangled etymologies in English? And is our "Related or Not" game a good way of approaching word history?

We're talking to Dr Anatoly Liberman, perhaps the world's preëminent living etymologist and the author of Origin Uncertain: Unraveling the Mysteries of Etymology.

Linguistics is what we all love, but how do we make it pay? Turns out there are more ways than you might have thought of, and a new book is here to help. Dr Anna Marie Trester joins Daniel for an uplifting and hopeful chat.

And how do we make the online experience better for Blind people? Friend of the pod Ellen is here with some do’s and some do-not-do’s.

Lingcomm legend Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl) joins us to answer all the questions in our Mailbag! And we have to ask her about National Grammar Day. How do we bring out descriptive grammar, and tone down the policing?

• Why do some people say “She text me”?
• Why are some people convinced it’s the Flinstones and not the Flintstones?
• Are some people saying “I finished mines”?
• Is technology making us forget how to spell and write?
• And why does “going to Kong Kong” have a naughty meaning in Korean?

Anacostia is a rapidly gentrifying suburb in Washington DC, and as Anacostia changes, so does the language. How do the original Black residents use language to establish their cred? What about the language of the new Black gentrifiers?

Dr Jessi Grieser has been listening. She’s the author of The Black Side of the River, and she joins Daniel for a chat.

Every Linguistics 101 student knows about HP Grice and his famous Maxims. They state that dialogue is usually cooperative — and when it doesn't appear to be, they explain how we manage to work out meaning anyway.

But linguists are questioning the applicability and universality of these rules. Is it time for a reappraisal of Grice? We're joined by Rikker Dockum on this episode of Because Language.