Hello!
Lingthusiasm was featured in the New York Times' list of 5 Podcasts for Word Nerds! And here's print evidence that it happened.
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.
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.
Xenolinguistics 👽 (bonus)
Helping computers decode sentences — Interview with Emily M. Bender
Linguistic Travel — Estonia, Mundolingua, and Martha's Vineyard (bonus)
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)
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:
I put the glamor back into grammar, a "deadpan German linguistics bop"
Tweets and blog posts
Linguists don't really know what a "word" is and we don't really mind
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?
Thanks for coming along,
Gretchen