People are asking questions about language and gender equality.

What’s Oxford Dictionaries doing about some of its questionable definitions? And linguists are wondering why Disney princesses don’t talk more.

Linguist Daniel Midgley is listening on this episode of Talk the Talk.


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Promo

Promo with Kylie Sturgess, 2016-02-02: Dirty

Show notes

Elizabeth Close’s blog post: “I don’t care for your brand of racism.”
https://adingonamedgerald.wordpress.com/2016/01/26/i-dont-care-for-your-brand-of-racism/

‘It’s Australia Day, we speak English’: Aboriginal artist ‘abused for speaking an indigenous dialect to her daughter’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3419333/Aboriginal-artist-Elizabeth-Close-abused-speaking-indigenous-dialect-daughter.html

Ms Close was speaking Pitjantjatjara
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitjantjatjara

Is France’s unloved AZERTY keyboard heading for the scrapheap?
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-eu-35365604

France wants to fix the terrible AZERTY keyboard
http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/22/france-wants-to-fix-the-terrible-azerty-keyboard/

QWERTY vs. AZERTY: Why are French and US Keyboards Different?
http://frenchmorning.com/en/qwerty-vs-azerty-why-are-french-and-us-keyboards-different/

AFNOR page: Respect de l’écriture française : vers un nouveau modèle de clavier informatique
http://www.afnor.org/liste-des-actualites/actualites/2015/novembre-2015/respect-de-l-ecriture-francaise-vers-un-nouveau-modele-de-clavier-informatique
(It’s in French, so you might not be able to read it. But you should try, because look at all the trouble they went to.)

Word and Phrase Info
http://www.wordandphrase.info/frequencyList.asp

Michael Oman-Reagan: Sexism in the Oxford Dictionary of English
https://medium.com/space-anthropology/sexism-in-the-oxford-dictionary-of-english-6d335c6a77b5#.yognwxy94

Btw, ‘rabid’ isn’t always negative, and our example sentences come from real-world use and aren’t definitions: https://t.co/npaVgBahOM

— Oxford Dictionaries (@OxfordWords) January 22, 2016

Oxford Dictionary Agrees to Review Language After Accusations of Sexism
http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/01/25/feminism-oxford-rabid

Sexism row prompts Oxford Dictionaries to review language used in definitions
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/25/oxford-dictionary-review-sexist-language-rabid-feminist-gender

Oxford: How are dictionary examples chosen?
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2016/01/dictionary-examples/

A dictionary entry citing ‘rabid feminist’ doesn’t just reflect prejudice, it reinforces it
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/26/rabid-feminist-language-oxford-english-dictionary

Oxford Dictionaries Apologizes for “Rabid” Feminism Tweet; Gets Trolled by Disappointed Misogynists
http://www.themarysue.com/oxford-dictionaries-mra-trolls/

Vance Joy and Chet Faker went to school together, which means the Hottest 100 has had more winners from St Kevin’s Toorak than women

— Erin Riley (@erinrileyau) January 25, 2016

Hottest 100: Chet Faker Backtracks on Twitter Response Against Feminist Writer
http://thevine.com.au/entertainment/hottest-100-chet-faker-backtracks-twitter-response-feminist-writer/

Researchers have found a major problem with ‘The Little Mermaid’ and other Disney movies
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/25/researchers-have-discovered-a-major-problem-with-the-little-mermaid-and-other-disney-movies/

Linguists Try to Figure Out How Harmful Disney Princesses Are to Kids
http://io9.gizmodo.com/linguists-try-to-figure-out-how-harmful-disney-princess-1755258488

LSA: A Quantitative Analysis of Gendered Compliments in Disney Princess Films
http://www.linguisticsociety.org/abstract/quantitative-analysis-gendered-compliments-disney-princess-films

“controlled opposition”: Flat-Earthers are back: ‘It’s almost like the beginning of a new religion’
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/20/flat-earth-believers-youtube-videos-conspiracy-theorists

Flat wrong: the misunderstood history of flat Earth theories
https://theconversation.com/flat-wrong-the-misunderstood-history-of-flat-earth-theories-53808

Girl toys, boy toys, and parenting: The science of toy preferences in children
http://www.parentingscience.com/girl-toys-and-parenting.html

Speaking Out: The Female Voice in Public Contexts
Google Books link


Transcript

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