The Vocal Fries

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Carrie and Megan talk with Paulette van der Voet and Martina Terrazzano, PhD students at the University of Umea, about their class called “Linguistics and the Eurovision Song Contest”.

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We talk with Dr Lorna Gibb about her newest book, Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages.

Steven Pinker:

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Carrie and Megan talk with Drs Emily M. Bender, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington, and Alex Hanna, Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), about their new book, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want, out May 13, 2025.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Gabe Henry about his new book, Enough is enuf: Our failed attempts to make English eezier to spell.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Gerald Roche, Lecturer in the Department of Languages and Cultures at La Trobe University, about his new book, The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet, language oppression, solidarity, China and Tibet. 

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Megan and Carrie talk with Massimiliano Canzanella about the Neapolitan language and how it is perceived in Italy.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Adam Benkato, Associate Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley, about Arabic.

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Megan and Carrie talk to Dr Ayala Fader, professor of anthropology at Fordham University, and Dr Mike Mena, Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY, about their new project, the Demystifying Language Project, where academics and high school students work together to rewrite linguistic articles into more accessible versions.

First article: Speech or Silence

Intro from our patron René:

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Carrie and Megan talk to Dr Leonard Cassuto, Professor of English at Fordham University, about his class called "Literature and Psychology of Disgust," which explores how language evokes emotional responses, particularly disgust, and his book Academic Writing as if Readers Matter, which was released in September. 

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 Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Elia Powers, Associate Professor of Journalism at Towson University, about his book Performing the News: Identity, Authority, and the Myth of Neutrality.

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Megan and Carrie talk with Dr Laura C. Chávez-Moreno, assistant professor at UCLA in the Departments of Chicana/o and Central American Studies and Education, about her book How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America, coming out October 1.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Robert Henderson, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, about his newest book (with Dr Elin Mccready), Signaling without Saying: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Dogwhistles.

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Megan and Carrie talk with Tim Brookes about his newest book, Writing Beyond Writing, what writing is, his journey to caring about Endangered Alphabets and his favourite scripts.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Ross Perlin,  co-director of the Manhattan-based non-profit Endangered Language Alliance, about his new book, Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York.

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Megan and Carrie talk with Drs Kris Aric Knisley and Eric Louis Russell about their book Redoing linguistic worlds: Unmaking gender binaries, remaking gender pluralities, gender, critical linguistics, trans linguistics, and uneffing all things.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Drs Rusty Barrett, Professor of Linguistics, Jennifer Cramer, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Kentucky, and Kevin B. McGowan, Associate Professor of Linguistics and Director of the University of Kentucky Phonetics Lab (all at at the University of Kentucky), about their book English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. 

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Megan and Carrie talk with Dr Anne Curzan about her book Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Sheri Wells-Jensen,  Associate Professor at Bowling Green State University, about her chapter Cognition, Sensory Input, and Linguistics : A Possible Language for Blind Aliens in the new book Xenolinguistics: Towards a Science of Extraterrestrial Language, blind aliens, how languages can be, and her appreciation of the movie Arrival.

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Megan and Carrie talk with Dr Lee Moore about the linguistic situation in China, particularly the hostile environment towards Uyghurs.

He is also the author of "A dyslexic learning Chinese".

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Suzanne Wertheim about her book, The Inclusive Language Field Guide: 6 Simple Principles for Avoiding Painful Mistakes and Communicating Respectfully.

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Megan and Carrie talk with Dr Rebecca Roache about her book, For F*ck's Sake: Why Swearing is Shocking, Rude, and Fun. 

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Bryce McCleary, Lecturer in Linguistics at Rice University, about his paper “'We All Country': Region, Place, and Community Language among Oklahoma City Drag Performers".

Australia referendum

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Megan and Carrie talk with Poppy Mardall, the founder and chair of Poppy’s, about the Dead Good Words campaign around dehumanizing and euphemistic language about death.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Felicity Meakins, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Queensland, and Briony Barr, a visual-conceptual-teaching artist and co-founder of the Scale Free Network, about their book Tamarra: A Story of Termites on Gurindji Territory, why termites are important to Gurindji people, and why they wanted to work on this project.

Listen on Podurama

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Megan and Carrie talk to Erin McCarthy,  Editor-in-Chief of Mental Floss, about her new book (with the Mental Floss team), Mental Floss Curious Compendium of Wonderful Words: A Miscellany of Obscure Terms, Bizarre Phrases & Surprising Etymologies

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Robert Englebretson, Associate Professor in Linguistics at Rice University, about all things braille. 

Sources:

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Megan and Carrie talk with Dr Valerie Fridland about her new book, Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English, how to pronounce Nevada, and all things language.

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Dr. Bob Kennedy is back! Carrie and Megan pick his brain about all things language in sports. 

He shoots, he scores!

Intro discussion:

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Megan and Carrie talk with Rachel E. Gross about her book, Vagina Obscura, and the language we use to describe pregnancy, vaginas, cervixes, etc.

Whale vocal fry:

Background on phonic lips

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Carrie and Megan talk to Dr Ilan Stavans about his new book, The People's Tongue: Americans and the English Language.

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Megan and Carrie talk to Dr. Dennis Baron, Emeritus Professor of English at  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, about his newest book You Can't Always Say What You Want: The Paradox of Free Speech.

What do moos mean?

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Geneva Smitherman/Dr. G about her book My Soul Look Back In Wonder, narrative essays about her race, gender, class, and linguistic consciousness as a member of the Black Power Generation of the 1960s and 70s.

Quebec economic immigrants

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Example bonus episode from November 2022.

We talk WOTY22!

Full episode coming soon

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Megan and Carrie talk with Jonathan "radbwa faroush" Myers and Adrien  Guillory-Chatman, members of the first Wikitongues cohort, about Kouri-Vini, aka Louisiana Creole, a French Creole spoken mainly in Louisiana.   

Collins' WOTY22
A discussion of Ukrainian to English transliteration
Dictionary.com's new words
Learn Kouri-Vini

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Carrie and Megan talk with Maureen Kosse, linguistics PhD student at University of Colorado Boulder, about her paper "Ted Cruz Cucks Again",  the origins and meaning of "cuck",  white supremacy, antisemitism, and the alt-right.

Check out The Story of Woman podcast Carrie mentions in the intro

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Megan and Carrie talk with Dr JPB Gerald, host of Unstandardized English, a podcast about language teaching, race, and whiteness,  about his new book Antisocial Language Teaching: English and the Pervasive Pathology of Whiteness.
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You asked for it and it finally happened: the You're Wrong About/Vocal Fries crossover event is here.

Carrie and Megan talk with Sarah Marshall about bimbos, vocal fry, the word "like" and many other things.

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Megan and Carrie talk with Kory Stamper, lexicographer extraordinaire, about the history and use of the word "bullsh*t".

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr. John Rickford, emeritus professor at Stanford, about his memoir, Speaking my Soul: Race, Life and Language, growing up in Guyana, moving to the United States, and his love of linguistics and Black Talk.

Fifth anniversary sign up

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Megan and Carrie talk with Drs Andreea Calude and Laurie Bauer about their new textbook Mysteries of English Grammar: A Guide to Complexities of the English Language and their edited volume Questions about Language: What Everybody Should Know about Language in the 21st Century.

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