Lingthusiasm

@lingthusiasm

A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics! By @gretchenmcculloch.com and @superlinguo.bsky.social "Fascinating" -NYT "Joyously nerdy" -Buzzfeed lingthusiasm.com Not sure where to start? Try our silly personality quiz: bit.ly/lingthusiasmquiz

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Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Jul 2

please remember to adopt a medium posture today in the middle of the day and go uhhh for World Schwa Day from our episode about real and silly linguistics holidays www.patreon.com/posts/142860...

Lauren: I think we could also have a go at making World Schwa Day happen.
Gretchen: What day would you propose for that?
Lauren: It would have to be the very middle of the year (which I now realise I’m not sure if that’s the 1st of July of the 30th of June), and it would have to change on a leap year.
Gretchen: According to Wikipedia it is July 2nd.
Lauren: Right, July 2nd. So, July 2nd at midday, peak schwa day.
Gretchen: July 2nd at midday everyone just stand outside and go /ə:/. That can be schwa day.
Lauren: Schwa Day – it’s extremely mid. You can’t make it too much of a big deal because it’s schwa. It’s unstressed. It’s not a big deal.
Gretchen: It’s just sort of chill. I think that’s particularly good in the North American context because a lot of border cities between Canada and the US will celebrate both July 1st, which is Canada Day, and July 4th, which is American Independence Day, and they’ll have fireworks on both of those days. It’s nice to have a lull day in the middle.
Lauren: Oh, I was gonna say we’ve got a new holiday for them where they could just do both at once.
Gretchen: But they have to put off incredibly quiet fireworks if it’s Schwa Day.

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Jun 19

Update: I tried making an HTML link in soundcloud and got this error message saying that HTML is not supported, so yeah this seems to be a @soundcloud.dev problem

Textfield saying: For links to things mentioned in this episode plus the HTML syntax for a hyperlink going to https://lingthusiasm.com/post/819808519023968256/lingthusiasm-episode-117-what-makes-for-beautiful
Error message saying: HTML is not supported, please only use plain text.

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Jun 2

You can see all the Lingthusiasm scarves in various colours (including rainbow for when you want to wear your linguistics nerdery to the Pride parade?) by selecting the category "linguistics scarves" from Filters > Collections (idk why redbubble won't let us link to it directly)

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Jun 2

Scarves with the international Phonetic Alphabet on them! Scarves with all of the possible combinatorial tree structures of three nodes or less! Scarves with our favourite esoteric Unicode symbols! Scarves with bouba and kiki! Scarves with Gavagai the rabbit leaping past!

I'm holding up the esoteric Unicode symbols scarf in medium blue at an airport on my way to the Unicode conference

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Jun 2

Redbubble is currently having a 20% off sale on scarves and I'm not sure how long it'll last but if you've been thinking of picking up a Lingthusiasm scarf now might be a good time! www.redbubble.com/people/lingt...

A cup of tea on a wooden table surrounded by four nerdy print scarves draped around it: a red scarf with random IPA characters, black with IPA characters, light blue with tree structure diagrams, and off-white with tree diagrams

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· May 25

Ever since I watched Sesame Street as a kid, I've thought that all sponsorships should come with a letter of the alphabet. That's why we give supporters at the Ling-phabet tier and higher their very own character of the International Phonetic Alphabet lingthusiasm.com/supporters

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· May 22

Yessss we cracked 5000 and I even managed to get a round number screenshot before we ticked over!! Great job team! 💚💚💚

5000 people have taken this quiz
View their answers >

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· May 15

Gesture: every language has them, but what do they have to do with the emoji on your phone? Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about Lauren's new book 'Gesture: A Slim Guide' from Oxford University Press in our episode 'A hand-y guide to gesture' Full episode here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· May 11

Noon: lend your ears to the idioms episode!

A calendar reading:
7am - beat the dead horse
8am - push someone's buttons
9am - skate on thin ice
9:30 - beat around the bush
10am - put in my 2 cents, knock it till I try it
11am address the elephant in the room

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· May 8

Live from Lingthusiasm HQ, audio editing is undergoing an important quality control audit from the big boss (please say hi to Gremlin the cat!)

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Apr 30

Legible arrangements and kindred spirits for everyone! @gretchenmcculloch.com gets enthusiastic about surprise!collabing with @erikamoen.bsky.social on Quips, one of @patreon.com's new discovery features Our collab happened organically and this video was made possible with Patreon #paidbypatreon

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Apr 10

We’re taking you on a journey to new linguistic destinations, so come along for the ride and don’t forget to hold on! From ‘Welcome back aboard the metaphor train’, the episode where we get enthusiastic about our unlocked bonus episode on metaphors! soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Mar 13

Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among some morphemes From ‘Micro to macro - The levels of language’. Listen to the full episode here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Mar 5

We hear this from people a lot: your podcast got me enthusiastic about linguistics too, but now I need more people to share my enthusiasm with! While we definitely also endorse getting your friends and family on the linguistics fan-wagon, may we also suggest the Lingthusiasm Discord server?

Screenshot of Lingthusiasm discord channel menu, featuring highlighted channels called introductions, Lingthusiasm podcast, general linguistics ish, everything else, language learning, academia and jobs, linguistics memes and cute stuff, daily word games, food, non English chat, language games
Plus greyed-out channels including: welcome, announcements, suggestions and help, and pronouns and optional roles

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Jan 29

From the episode where we get enthusiastic about how we manage to understand each other when we’re learning new words - or when useful folk categories, like “trees” and “fish” don’t line up with evolutionary taxonomies... Listen to the full episode here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 26

Day 25 of #ThatsMyJam! Salted Caramel, with What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles You can listen to us get enthusiastic about how language interacts with your other senses like vision and touch here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Green background with white text that says 'That's My Jam! A Lingthusiasm episode pairing for every day of the Bonne Maman Jam Advent Calendar'. A photo of a tiny jam of jar with a red gingham lid and cursive French script on a colourful background, set in a polaroid frame, with navy blue text that says ‘Salted Caramel’. The photo is surrounded by line drawings of large and small and stars. Below that is white text that says ‘What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles’

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 23

Day 23 of #ThatsMyJam! Rhubarb & Strawberry, with You heard about it but I was there - Evidentiality You can listen to us get enthusiastic about how we come to know things, and how different languages let us talk about this, here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 23

Day 23 of #ThatsMyJam! Raspberry & Lychee, with On the nose - How the nose shapes language You can listen to us get enthusiastic about the nose here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 22

Day 21 of #ThatsMyJam! Strawberry & Passionfruit, with Love and fury at the linguistics of emotions You can listen to us get enthusiastic about the layers of language that are involved in emotions here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 22

Day 20 of #ThatsMyJam! Peach, Blackcurrant, & Sichuan Peppercorn, with Whoa!! A surprise episode??? For me??!! You can listen to us get enthusiastic about surprise here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 20

Day 19 of #ThatsMyJam! Italian Mandarins, with The science and fiction of Sapir-Whorf You can listen to us get enthusiastic about the science and fiction of linguistic relativity, popularly known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 18

Day 18 of #ThatsMyJam! Cherry & Pink Peppercorn, with Real swear words vs pseudo swears You can listen to our extra special bonus edition from the vault, where we get enthusiastic about our first sweary episode, for free on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/131301...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 18

Day 17 of #ThatsMyJam! Pear, Clementine, & Cinnamon, with Emoji are Gesture Because Internet You can listen to us get enthusiastic about emoji, and how gesture studies can bring us to a better understanding of these new digital pictures, here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 17

Day 16 of #ThatsMyJam! Orange, Yuzu, & Grapefruit, with Writing is a technology You can listen to us get enthusiastic about writing systems, and how the structure and history of a language contribute to the massively multigenerational project of devising them, here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 16

Day 15 of #ThatsMyJam! Orange, Guava, & Lime, with Urban Multilingualism You can listen to us get enthusiastic about the hundreds of languages many cities are host to that don't show up on official records here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 15

Did you know you can buy a membership to our Patreon to give to someone else? Makes a great last-minute gift for you or someone else who's enthusiastic about linguistics! www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 15

Day 14 of #ThatsMyJam! Mango & Ginger, with A hand-y guide to gesture You can listen to us get enthusiastic about Lauren’s new book, Gesture: A Slim Guide from Oxford University Press here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 14

Day 13 of #ThatsMyJam! Apricot with Honey, with The history of the history of Indo-European - Interview with Danny Bate You can listen to us get enthusiastic about the process of figuring out Proto-Indo-European with @dannybate.bsky.social here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 13

Day 12 of #ThatsMyJam! Raspberry Redcurrant, with Word order, we love You can listen to us get enthusiastic about how languages put words in a particular order here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm· Dec 13

Day 11 of #ThatsMyJam! Pineapple, Rum, & Vanilla, with A hundred reasons to be enthusiastic about linguistics You can listen to us get enthusiastic about 100 of our favourite fun facts about linguistics here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...