lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 117: What makes for beautiful writing, scientifically speaking

Sometimes, a phrase seems to leap off the page and lodge into your mind, crisp and shining like a precious jewel. Other times, you’re reading something and it just won’t stick, your eyes wandering away no matter how hard you try.

In this bonus episode, Gretchen gets enthusiastic about what psycholinguistics can tell us about creative writing, with Julie Sedivy, who’s a psycholinguist based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and the author of two general-audience linguistics books, Memory Speaks and Linguaphile. We talk about moving from the style of scientific writing to literary writing by writing a lot of unpublished poetry to develop her aesthetic sense, how studying linguistics for a writer is like studying anatomy for a sculptor or colour theory for a painter, and how you could set up an eyetracking study to help writers figure out which sentences make their readers slow down. We also do a small linguistic experiment on air using the following words, which you can play along with: luggage, liminal, withstand, tremulous, pulchritude, zoo.

Note that this episode originally aired as Bonus 96: What makes for beautiful writing, scientifically speaking, and we’ve added an updated announcements section to the top. We’re excited to share one of our favourite bonus episodes from Patreon with a broader audience, while at the same time giving everyone who works on the show a bit of a break.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about linguistics podcasting with Helen Zaltzman, host of The Allusionist podcast! We talk about being nearly teenaged in the world of language podcasting (Lingthusiasm turns 10 later this year, and The Allusionist turned 10 last year!) and alternative careers that we had on the way to becoming podcasters (did you know Helen once worked for a reality TV show?). We also talk about breaking the kiki/bouba test, the importance of publishing “failed” experiments, the Bender Rule and the Holliday Rule (both previous Lingthusiasm guests!).

Note that this particular bonus episode is available to everyone who follows us at any level (including free!) on Patreon, so welcome if you’re joining us as an Allusionist fan (or a broke lingthusiasm fan tbh, we’re trying to give you some treats while also trying to keep the show running!!).

Speaking of which…a few people found Patreon’s new community gifting feature before we even knew what to do with it so we’ve been able to give out 7 community-supported memberships so far to people who follow us for free on Patreon. If anyone else is feeling comfortably off in this economy and wants to help both us and your fellow lingthusiasts, we’d be happy to do this again! Follow us as a free member to get announcements whenever we might have gifted memberships to distribute!

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. Plus: we’ve been posting more and more fun things for free followers on Patreon, such as helping us decide what bonus episode to unlock next and this exciting new announcement about zines!

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @gretchenmcculloch.com, on instagram @gretchen.mcculloch and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

3Lingthusiasm

hedwig-dordt:

lingthusiasm:

Bonus Episode 112: The Lingthusionist - Interview with Helen Zaltzman | Lingthusiasm
Bonus Episode 112: The Lingthusionist - Interview with Helen Zaltzman by Lingthusiasm on Patreon. Join Lingthusiasm's community for exclusi
Patreon

Bonus Episode 112: The Lingthusionist - Interview with Helen Zaltzman

The Allusionist is a podcast that tells stories about language and the people who use it, which actually started only a year or so before Lingthusiasm but has always felt a bit like our older cousin.

In this long-awaited crossover bonus episode, your host Lauren Gawne gets enthusiastic about linguistics podcasting with Helen Zaltzman, host of The Allusionist podcast. We talk about being nearly teenaged in the world of language podcasting (Lingthusiasm turns 10 later this year, and The Allusionist turned 10 last year!) and alternative careers that we had on the way to becoming podcasters (did you know Helen once worked for a reality TV show?). We also talk about breaking the kiki/bouba test, the importance of publishing “failed” experiments, the Bender Rule and the Holliday Rule (both previous Lingthusiasm guests!), and answer a listener question, which we’ll now pose to you in the comments. Heather asks, “If you had the power to change one thing about the English language, exclusively for low-stakes reasons, such as pettiness, vibes, or aesthetics, what would you change?”

Listen to this episode about linguistics podcasting with Helen Zaltzman, host of The Allusionist podcast, for free on our Patreon! Get access to many more bonus episodes, plus our Discord server where you can chat to other language nerds, by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon.

MARVEL EAT YOUR FUCKING HEART OUT - HERE’S THE CROSSOVER I WANT

Just wanna highlight that this one’s available for free to anyone who follows us on Patreon, just hit that “join for free” button, as a way to try and make it more accessible to people who are fans of one of us and don’t know the other one yet!

(We’re experimenting with more free posts on Patreon in general lately including an exciting behind the scenes announcement that went up yesterday so it might be a good time to take a peek.)

3Fanning and Politics

superlinguo:

2026 LingComm Grantees

The 2026 LingComm Grants awarded seven $300 (USD) grants, thanks to Lingthusiasm patrons, as well as Lukas Graf, Sarah Kelen, Daniel Currie Hall, enchantedsleeper, Rob Monarch, and Kirby Conrod and friends. Each grant winner was connected to a relevant lingcomm expert for advice and support. The 2026 LingComm Grants received 111 applications.



Kirby Conrod LGBTQ+ LingComm Grant


Commendations


For more on the 2026 grants, the winners from previous years, and other lingcomm resources, check out the LingComm website.

It’s always so interesting reading through the LingComm Grant applications and seeing what topics and formats people are excited about communicating at the moment. Congrats to all the winners and honourable mentions, and thank you to all the applicants for trusting us with your dreams.

3Superlinguo

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 116: Cross-cultural communication (in space!)

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 or read the transcript here.

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.

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.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @gretchenmcculloch.com, on instagram @gretchen.mcculloch and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

3Lingthusiasm

bookshop:

elizabethminkel:

fansplaining:

The Elation and Anxiety of Reading Fic in Your Native Tongue
For fans in Kenya, Nigeria, and Burundi, “uncringing” non-English fanfiction is an endeavor in decolonialism.
Fansplaining

Our latest piece is live! The brilliant Soila Kenya writes about the dominance of English in fandom and especially fanfiction spaces, and why for her and the fellow fans she interviewed from Kenya, Nigeria, and Burundi, this is partly about the global dominance of English-language pop culture, but especially about the legacies of colonialism:

The deep psychological imprints of this language disparity remain. And therefore, when I encountered fanfiction, it didn’t even occur to me that there were fanfics written in any language but English, let alone Swahili or any of the 42 indigenous languages in Kenya.

Click through to read the whole piece or listen to a full audio version! And if you enjoy it, please consider becoming a (free) member or especially a paying subscriber—we want to commission more pieces from Soila and other smart writers and we need your help to pay them!

(As a reminder, we have a discount rate for anyone who wants it, no questions asked—if you’re a student, educator, un/underemployed, have a lower income, or literally any other reason, just email info@fansplaining.com and we’re happy to provide!)

This piece is SO good—absolutely worth your time to read or listen (I always love hearing the writers read their work, but since the focus of this piece is language, it was especially great hearing Soila read it). If you enjoy it, please share widely: I know what Soila writes here will resonate with so many people across fandom.

Just seconding the love for this piece! It really is SO tremendously worth your time.

Soila was one of my favorite WorldCon panelists last year and here she’s written a really thoughtful but also extremely enjoyable treatise on what can sometimes be the “cringe” effect of reading—let alone writing!—fics in your native tongue.

I found this piece so engrossing, delightfully wry, provocative, and educational. It makes me so happy and proud to be a part of this era of Fansplaining.

3Fansplaining

January, February, & March 2026: Abridged sonnets and legible arrangements

In the first quarter of the year, I attended the Linguistic Society of America 2026 annual meeting online and admired how linguists are really great at pronouncing people’s names (phonetic transcription is a practical skill!).

I narrated the audiobook for Shakespeare’s Sonnets Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness by Zach Weinersmith, featuring sonnets turned into couplets like “When in…

January, February, & March 2026: Abridged sonnets and legible arrangements
gretchenmcculloch.com

lingthusiasm:

Lingthusiasm Episode 115: The long shadow of Daisy Bates with This Guy Sucked

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 or read the transcript here.

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.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

Books:

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @gretchenmcculloch.com, on instagram @gretchen.mcculloch and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

3Lingthusiasm

unfavorableinstigation:

galileosballs:

real-language-facts:

one may think “language” is french or spinach for “the nguage”. this is a folk etymology myth, it is actually more like mile -> mileage. “How much language are you getting out ofthose words”

I regret to inform everyone that this is actually not that far off the real etymology. The ‘langue’ part of language comes from the latin 'lingua’, meaning 'tongue’, and the ’-age’ suffix is something the word picked up in old french as a suffix of action (like how a 'pilgrimage’ is 'that thing pilgrims do’). So really it’s more like 'what that tongue do’

Well, that’s upsetting.

I’m a linguist and this is completely true.

Also the Proto Indo-European root for tongue is cursed and needs to be brought to your attention:

late 13c., langage "words, what is said, conversation, talk,“ from Old French langage "speech, words, oratory; a tribe, people, nation” (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *linguaticum, from Latin lingua "tongue,“ also "speech, language” (from PIE root *dnghu- "tongue"). The -u- is an Anglo-French insertion (see gu-); it was not originally pronounced.

3Benôit's Bumblings