The Vocal Fries

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Michael Erard about his newest e-book, The Language Beat: Essays and Reporting on Language and Life. 

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Danny Bate about his book, Why Q Needs U. Check out his podcast, A Language I Love Is...

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The Fries are 9!

Carrie and Megan talk with Erik Singer, dialect coach to the stars, to celebrate 9 years of the Fries!

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Carrie and Megan talk with Kelly Gaumont, host of the podcast Canuck is a Slur, about his podcast, French Canadians in Alberta, and all things language in Canada.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Chad M Topaz, professor of complex systems at Williams College and cofounder of the QSIDE Institute, about his book Unlocking Justice: The Power of Data to Confront Inequity and Create Change.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Valerie Fridland about her newest book, Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Drs Lynnette Arnold and Anna I. Corwin about their new co-edited book (with Jennifer R Guzmán and Emily Avera), Language and Health in Action (ebook), along with two authors in the same volume, Drs Stephanie Keeney Parks and Abby Mack about their chapters "Autism Diagnostics as White Public Space in US Clinics" and "In the Spirit, in the Flesh: Performative Language, Embodiment, and Sustaining Recovery in Appalachia".

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Carrie and Megan talk with Kory Stamper, about her newest book, True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color from Azure to Zinc Pink. Out March 31, 2026!

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Carrie and Megan talk about the Epstein emails and Chomsky's correspondence with him. Carrie swears more than usual.

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Carrie and Megan talk about the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Tim Brookes about his newest book, By Hand, about the importance of handwriting.

NBER report

Current Affairs

WOTY: 

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Carrie and Megan talk about Makaton, an artificial sign-based system, particularly Sara Novič's article about it.

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Carrie and Megan talk about random words that are scary or scary-adjacent.

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We have a few things to say about Pinker.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Adam Aleksic about his new book, Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language.

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Carrie and Megan talk with Megan C. Reynolds, Dwell magazine editor, about her  book, Like: A History of the World's Most Hated (and Misunderstood) Word.

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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.

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