Category: gender (page 1 of 5)

394: What’s Your Pronoun? (with Dennis Baron)

It’s been a big year for singular they, but there’s more than one pronoun in town.

What invented pronouns have there been? How far back does singular they go? And why did some people kick up a fuss about …

367: Your Inner Prescriptivist (with Alyssa Severin and Pete Swanton)

Even if we’re trying not to be the grammar police, we all have that internal voice that notices linguistic difference, and categorises people thereby.

How do we deal with that inner prescriptivist? How can we have linguistic discussions with grammar …

364: Mailbag of R-R-R-R

The questions never stop, and neither do we.

  • What’s the past tense of yeet, and why is English past tense so strange?
  • Can etymology help you spell rhythm?
  • Should French teachers have to speak with a Parisian accent?

362: Gesture in Mind (with Violet Wardrill)

Gesture. We all do it. But what are our brains doing while it’s going on?

What does gesture contribute to our interpretation? Can we work out complex meanings when words are replaced by gestures? And when a gesture like the …

357: The F-Word (with Jesse Sheidlower)

Flexible. Funny. Foul.

This most versatile of English words is all of these and more. And it gets a thorough cataloging in The F-Word by lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower.

He sits down with Daniel for a chat on history, power, …

352: Wait (with Sali Tagliamonte)

Wait — you mean people are doing something new in English? They sure are.

It’s happening to the word wait, and it’s been spotted by famed sociolinguist Dr Sali Tagliamonte of the University of Toronto. Do you start sentences with …

337: Getting the Bias out of Data (featuring Robyn Speer and Kai-Wei Chang)

People are biased. And computers learn from people.

That means our data is biased, and in a big data world, that can cause big problems.

But researchers are finding ways to turn down the bias in a dataset. We’re talking …

333: When Sapir Met Whorf (featuring Mikael Parkvall and Östen Dahl)

Would you think differently if you spoke a different language? And does the structure of your language have any perceptible effect on your behaviour?

We’re revisiting the Sapir Whorf Hypothesis. Is this an idea that’s coming in from the cold? …

330: Making Words for Miriwoong (featuring Knut Olawsky)

The Australian Aboriginal language of Mirawoong is being revitalised. But to do this, it needs more than speakers. It needs words.

How do you construct new words in a language? And how well are these words being accepted?

We’re talking …

325: Mailbag of Moisture

It’s another dive into the Mailbag.

What’s the hardest language to lip read? Why do we say but at the end of sentences? And what can you call the non-binary parent in your life?

Daniel, Kylie, and Ben

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