Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics

Sometimes, you're talking with someone and you just seem to click. Other times, you just can't seem to get comfortable: they're standing too close or too far away for comfort, making too much or too little eye contact, touching or not touching you in a way that just doesn't quite feel right. But where do our senses of what feels comfortable in a conversation come from, and how can they be so different from each other?

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about understanding aliens, fantastical creatures, and perhaps the trickiest group of all, other human cultures. We talk about a science fiction book called Hellspark by Janet Kagan (which was recommended by a listener!) which is a murder mystery set on a planet of cross-cultural communication gone wrong, and which sent us on a whole deep dive into the world of proxemics, aka the linguistics of personal space. We also talk about how these early roots of cross-cultural communication studies have shifted in modern-day linguistic anthropology, and compare several newer speculative fiction books about alternative structures for human societies (plus aliens and/or dragons), including What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed and To Shape A Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjMyNTQ2MDc3NQ
Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/817301296196501504/transcript-episode-116-cross-cultural

Announcements:
Check our our updated topics page! It's a great resource if you're not sure what episode to listen to next or what to recommend to someone. We've added some new topics that let you browse, for example, which episodes analyze the linguistic elements of all the science fiction and fantasy that we've been reading! And we've kept the ability to browse episodes by linguistic structural features, which is perfect for when you're looking for an episode to pair with a topic you're teaching or studying. Go to https://lingthusiasm.com/topics

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about idioms! We talk about some of our favourite idioms, the interplay between idioms and metaphors, why linguists are so excited about breaking idioms by changing one word slightly, and in particular why "the shit hit the fan" was responsible for multi-hour-long discussions that Gretchen participated in during grad school. (Swear warning, because there's really not another idiom that uh, hits the fan in the same way.)

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 110+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://www.patreon.com/posts/156961605

For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/817300905885089792/lingthusiasm-episode-116-cross-cultural

What do you do when the only records that remain of a language were made by someone who had absolutely horrendous views of the people who spoke it?

In this episode, your host Lauren Gawne gets enthusiastic about a crossover episode with Claire Aubin of This Guy Sucked! Lauren's Guy who Sucked is Daisy Bates, who did a lot of early 20th century work documenting over 100 Indigenous languages in western and southern Australia, while also directly adding to policies and narratives that continue to harm Aboriginal Australians to this day. We talk about Lauren's history with the original archive, how much has changed since Daisy Bates's day, and where linguistics (and society) still has room to improve.

Please note that this episode includes reference to deceased Aboriginal Australians, as well as reference to attitudes and actions that are harmful to the self-determination of Aboriginal Australians.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjMwNDAyODk5Nw
Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/814101160008040448/transcript-episode-115-the-long-shadow-of-daisy

Announcements:
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the second half of our interview with Kory Stamper about her book on defining colour words, and this half contains spoilers!! We talk with Kory about how she learned about Margaret Godlove and many other women whose labour has been forgotten in early colour science and dictionary making.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://patreon.com/posts/153313989

For links to things mentioned in this episode:https: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/814100919507730432/lingthusiasm-episode-115-the-long-shadow-of-daisy

begonia: a deep pink that is bluer, lighter, and stronger than average coral (see ‘coral’ 3B), bluer than fiesta, and bluer and stronger than sweet William, called also ‘gaiety’.

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about trying to pin down definitions for colour terms with Kory Stamper, author of the new book TRUE COLOR! Kory is a lexicographer and was Associate Editor at Merriam-Webster for almost two decades. Her first book was Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, which we also loved, and now Kory is back with the fruits of her dive into the mid-20th century quest to standardize colour terms, taking us from dying fabrics to painting cars to assessing grades of maple syrup.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjI4NzE3NTMzMA
Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/811565836536086528/transcript-episode-114-begonia-average-coral

Announcements:
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about childlore! We talk about our favourite bits of childlore from our own childhoods, such as skipping/clapping rhymes, counting-off rhymes, and fortune-telling. We also talk about tracking down the sources for "All Right, Vegemite!", a compilation of Australian children's chants and rhymes from Lauren's childhood, selectively choosing to pass on less racist and sexist versions of the rhymes, the relationship between childlore and memes, as well as research from folklorists and anthropologists on childlore around the world.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://www.patreon.com/posts/152094450

For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/811565466203111424/lingthusiasm-episode-114-begonia-average-coral

In some communities, everyone regularly uses two languages or varieties according to the social situation, with one of them being more prestigious (and more likely to be written down) than the other. This particular kind of multilingualism is known as a diglossia.

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about diglossia! We talk about why diglossia is the answer to so many questions Gretchen gets asked at parties, what "high" and "low" versions of a language have to do with mountains, where the four "classic" cases of diglossia come from (Arabic, Greek, Haitian, and Swiss), and how at least some of them might not be diglossias anymore. We also talk about whether there are new diglossias emerging (French? English???) and how to tell if you might be in a diglossia.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjI2OTg5MjkwMw
Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/809025308745416704/transcript-episode-113-why-its-a-diglossia

Announcements:
The LingComm grants are running in 2026! If you're working on sharing linguistics concepts with broader audiences or know someone who is, whether in person, online, with kids, through art, video, audio, writing, in person events (or some other idea we haven't thought of!), we have $300USD grants to support your cool project. The grants also include a mentoring meeting with Gretchen, Lauren, and/or an experienced lingcommer who we have personally selected to be relevant to your project.

Applications close on 30th of April 2026, that's the end of April anywhere on earth. Thanks to the generosity of several people we have more grants to give out than we expected, so please apply! Application form and further details can be found here: https://lingcomm.org/grants/

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about what we've been up to in 2025 and what's coming up in 2026! Plus, we go behind the scenes on the Lingthusiasm Supporter Wall of Fame: we finally take our Which IPA character are you? personality quiz ourselves and use the results to give you a look into our artisanal process of assigning phonetic symbols to patrons at the Ling-phabet tier.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes (and get a symbol for yourself). You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://patreon.com/lingthusiasm

For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/809024963823714304/lingthusiasm-episode-113-why-its-a-diglossia

Language is all around us. This sentence right here, is language! But between the raw experience of someone saying something and a linguistic analysis of what they've said, there are certain steps that make it easier for that analysis to happen, or to be understood or reproduced by others later.

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about how language becomes linguistic data. We talk about making recordings of language, transcribing real-life or recorded language, annotating recordings or transcriptions, archiving all those materials for future generations, restoring archival materials from decaying formats, and presenting this information in useful ways when writing up an analysis. Along the way, we touch on playing 100+ year old songs from cracked wax cylinders, the multi-line glossing format used so readers can understand examples in a language they're not already fluent in, analyzing spontaneous conversation using tapes from the Watergate Scandal, recognizing everyone who's contributed (including your own intuitions!), and Lauren's role on a big committee of linguists and archivists formalizing principles for data citation in linguistics.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjI0ODMzMjkyMA
Read the transcript here:

Announcements:
If you wish there were more Lingthusiasm episodes to listen to or you just want to help us keep making this show, we have over a hundred bonus episodes available for you to listen to on Patreon.

Not sure about committing to a monthly subscription? You can now sign up for a free trial and start listening to bonus episodes for free right away: https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about about some of our favourite deleted bits from recent interviews that we didn't quite have space to share with you! First, an excerpt from our interview with Adam Aleksic about tiktok and how different online platforms give rise to different kinds of communication styles. Second, a return to our interview with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez for a bit about Spanish internet slang, -och, and why "McCulloch" looks like a perfect name for an author of a book about internet linguistics. Finally, deleted scenes from our advice episode, in which we reveal some Lingthusiasm lore about pronouncing "Melbourne" and imitating each other's accents and answer questions about linguistics degrees and switching languages with people..

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://www.patreon.com/posts/147181832

For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/805852742418661376/lingthusiasm-episode-112-when-language