“What’s your pronoun?” Good question.
Many people would like to be more supportive of trans and non-binary people. In general, it’s helpful to disclose pronouns, but there’s a little more to this story.
Daniel and Ben are talking to researcher Cedar Brown about pronouns on this episode of Talk the Talk.
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Show notes
RSL bans Welcome to Country, Aboriginal flag at Anzac Day, Remembrance Day ceremonies in WA – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-21/rslwa-bans-welcome-to-country-aboriginal-flag-anzac-remembrance/11986324
RSL branch bans Aboriginal flag and welcome to country at ceremonies
https://www.news.com.au/national/western-australia/rsl-branch-bans-aboriginal-flag-and-welcome-to-country-at-ceremonies/news-story/ef1d6b78b3a80c28323c396dad682174
WA RSL backs down over ban on Aboriginal flag after public backlash – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-23/wa-rsl-backs-down-on-aboriginal-flag-welcome-to-country-ban/11992416
Virginia Profanity Law Repealed By State Legislators : NPR
https://www.npr.org/2020/02/19/807435310/centuries-old-law-against-cursing-in-public-repealed-by-virginia-legislators
It’s a crime in Virginia to swear in public. A lawmaker says that’s #@!#ing nuts. – The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/its-a-crime-in-virginia-to-swear-in-public-a-lawmaker-says-thats-ating-nuts/2017/12/14/59a3760c-e0d9-11e7-8679-a9728984779c_story.html
How ‘They’ Became Word of the Decade | Voice of America – English
https://www.voanews.com/usa/all-about-america/how-they-became-word-decade
Urban Dictionary: misc
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=misc
Move Over, Gen Z: “Generation Alpha” Is Here
https://nowthisnews.com/news/move-over-gen-z-generation-alpha-is-here
A Comprehensive List of Generation Names
https://www.thoughtco.com/names-of-generations-1435472
Is it illegal to take a newborn home from the hospital without naming it first? | Straight Dope
https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1278/is-it-illegal-to-take-a-newborn-home-from-the-hospital-without-naming-it-first/
Transcript
This episode was transcribed by Daniel, Termy, Drew, and Jong Kim. Thanks!
DANIEL: The following is an RTRFM podcast. RTRFM is a community organisation and relies on volunteer and listener support. To learn more about what we do, visit rtrfm.com.au.
[THEME MUSIC]
DANIEL: I’m Daniel Midgley.
BEN: I’m Ben Ainslie.
DANIEL: And this is Talk the Talk.
BEN: RTRFM’s weekly exploration of matters linguistic, though this one is a teeny bit special, Daniel.
DANIEL: It’s bittersweet, isn’t it?
BEN: It is. It’s the surreal sort of like… I feel like “Auld Lang Syne” should be playing, or I should be pouring like a 40 on the kerb, or something like that because we are mike dropping.
DANIEL: This is our last show with RTRFM. It’s been an amazing place to grow, cut our teeth, and just do heaps and heaps of shows.
BEN: Heaps and heaps? I’m looking at show notes for this episode, and there is a 3, a 9, and a 5 all squished together which — I’m no mathematician, Daniel, but that’s nearly a whole hell of a lot of shows.
DANIEL: Episode 953. There we go. Wow.
BEN: [LAUGHS]
DANIEL: But don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere because we’re going to reassemble and come back at you in a slightly different form, sort of like a transformer.
BEN: Kind I was going I was actually going to drop the Power Rangers reference there, because the Megazord that they form had a couple of different permutations.
DANIEL: Is it Voltron? It was Voltron!
BEN: You know what — just miscellaneous Japanese knockoff Mecha shows. All acceptable.
DANIEL: Well, we have a very special guest co-host with us. It is Cedar Brown, a linguist from the University of Melbourne. Cedar, hi.
CEDAR BROWN: Hi, how are you going?
DANIEL: Great! We’re going to be talking about your work with pronouns, because it’s been all about the pronouns lately. February’s been pronoun month.
CEDAR: Mmm — fantastic!
DANIEL: Yeah!
BEN: But before we do that, we need to talk about some of the stuff that’s been in the news. Daniel, what have you got for us this week?
DANIEL: This story was suggested to us by Brett and by PharaohKatt. It’s about a bit of English Only that is lurking in Australia. You know, we don’t get a lot of English Only stuff happening usually in Australia.
BEN: Mm.
DANIEL: Outside of like the minor extremist right wing parties.
BEN: Mmm, you’re right actually now that I think about it, like in terms of like a hard push for English Only; it’s relatively rare. We’ve got a whole bunch of other stuff like homophobia and racism. Does it have anything to do with that?
DANIEL: It’s all related.
BEN: Okay.
DANIEL: It’s all one big ball of discrimination. But the story here is that the RSL, the….
BEN: I’m going to stop you there, Daniel. I’m going to stop you right there.
DANIEL: Yeah.
BEN: I know exactly what you’re about to talk about. I need to warn you, Daniel: you’re going to have to do a lot of bleeping over the next, like, six and a half minutes.
DANIEL: I’m ready. I’m ready.
BEN: I’m so…
DANIEL: Are you ropable?
BEN: I’m so ___king furious about this story.
DANIEL: Now for our international listeners, there’s a couple of background points that you might want to know. First of all, there’s a holiday — Anzac Day — which is 25th of April. It’s in Australia, it’s kind of like our Memorial Day. Anzac stands for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. They’re the ones who fought at Gallipoli in 1915, suffered huge losses, so on Anzac Day, we remember not just the Anzacs but all the service members who have died in military operations.
BEN: Like every country has a day like this, right? It’s like the Remember the Soldiers Day, basically. Some countries have two, like America. but we just have the one.
DANIEL: Yeah, exactly. Now another important ceremony that we often do at public events is a Welcome to Country, in which an Aboriginal person will say a few things about the place that we’re at, the country we’re on, and give a welcome in the language of the area. It’s kind of a way of acknowledging that we’re on Aboriginal land. Did I get that mostly right?
BEN: Ah, yep — well, I mean, as far as my as previously mentioned deeply deeply white understanding goes, yes.
CEDAR: Yeah, yeah. and that’s my understanding as well, that it’s like an important acknowledgement that it’s stolen land, and paying respects to the traditional owners.
BEN: Yeah, yeah.
CEDAR: And by one of the traditional owners.
BEN: Yeah, I was about to say, that’s the important distinction, because there’s a few other things that can be done like an Acknowledgement of Country, which is just like a nice set of words that anyone can say, that kind of acknowledges the same things, but a Welcome to Country has to be conducted usually by an Elder of the peoples whose land the ceremony is being conducted on. It’s like, it’s… for lack of a better phrase, it’s a kind of a big deal.
DANIEL: And one of the Elders is somebody by the name of Professor Len Collard, who’s been on the show. He’s a Noongar Elder. Last year at Anzac Day celebrations, he read a really important reading, the Ode of Remembrance. It’s part of the proceedings. But he had translated it himself into Noongar, which is the Australian Aboriginal language of our area. Well, that seems to have set the RSL off, and so the RSL in Western Australia, in our state, says that all the content has to now be in English. Also, you only get to fly the Australian, New Zealand, and WA flag; the Aboriginal flag is not welcome.
BEN: Do I get to start swearing yet, Daniel?
DANIEL: Let me get your reax, Ben. Top line reaction?
BEN: Oh, what a bunch of ___knuckle ___head ____s. Like this — just everything about this is terrible! There is not one redeeming ____ing phoneme in anything you just said.
CEDAR: Yeah, I think it’s really disgusting that they are saying this.
BEN: First of all, there’s this idea that, like, you should only fly the flags that are appropriate, I guess? That’s their idea behind like the three — the WA flag in WA, the New Zealand flag, and the Australian flag. But then… which kind of harks to this sort of like one-nation-one-flag kind of vibe, but that’s already ruined by, like, the rando WA state flag being there. And also the New Zealand flag, which is like a different country but because it’s like a bi-country coalition, then that counts but, like, news ___in’ flash, ___wits: there was Aboriginal… First Nation peoples all throughout many different wings of the fighting forces.
DANIEL: Yeah. You know, Australia doesn’t always do English Only like some people in the States do, but it really does happen here. and it’s good to remember: English Only legislation — this isn’t really legislation, it’s a policy move by the RSL — but it’s always tied to racism. It always has its roots in race and it’s got the same motivators. and it’s the same motivator for a lot of conservative stuff that we see. Like, you know, the way that so-called conservatives pretend like there’s a war on Christmas, you know? And it’s their way of saying, “Everybody used to do things the way I used to do things, and now some people are doing things differently, and because I’m not the centre of the world anymore, I don’t like it.”
BEN: Uh, Daniel?
DANIEL: Yes, Ben?
BEN: We have to interrupt our prerecorded session for a last-minute breaking news update!
DANIEL: Oh, breaking news! Doot doot doo doot doot doot doo. What is it?
BEN: RSLWA have apparently been told by enough people that they are gang of ___ing useless ___ing ___wits, and have backed down from their ___head decision of ___ery.
DANIEL: Let’s see, it looks like RSLWA chief executive John McCourt announced the policy had been withdrawn, given the level of community reaction to RSLWA’s advisory policy on cultural matters related to commemoration. This policy has now been withdrawn. We did it!
BEN: Nicely done. Because you know that just like literally everyone with more than three brain cells to rub together did it.
DANIEL: Well, I put it up on the Facebook page so I feel better about that. Okay. RSLWA, we are watching you, this isn’t over.
BEN: What I love is that it’s like a classic not-apology apology. “RSL is concerned that its position on the matter had unfortunately drawn misunderstandings of its intent.” Yeah, okay, RSLWA. No worries, you had the best of intentions all along, I’m sure!
DANIEL: Well, we’ve got to do something with all that swearing, so let’s go on to our next news story. and that is the state of Virginia in the USA had — had, past tense — a law about swearing for centuries and now it’s been repealed.
BEN: Oh! Well, that’s good. Is this one of those dumb ones though, like you can’t shoot a rabbit from a moving vehicle, but a stationary vehicle is okay? Is it one of those laws?
DANIEL: What do you mean you can’t shoot rabbits from a moving vehicle? That’s bull___!
BEN: [LAUGHS] I’m up in arms! and also firearms!
DANIEL: It’s kind of one of those things that’s only been prosecuted like a handful of times in this last century. It didn’t even say which words were banned, which is a warning flag for abuse, right?
BEN: Oh yeah, that’s way too much mission creep.
DANIEL: Heckin’ darn.
BEN: Yosemite Sam is screwed.
DANIEL: Rassle frassin’ slippin’ frappin’ slippin’! The State Representative behind it was Michael J. Webert, who has been trying to do this for years and years, but now that they’ve got an all-Democratic chamber, the law has gone through. And there’s a good reason why these laws should be off the books, and that is that swearing laws are often used against marginalised people, against working class people, lower income people. Whenever they have a run-in with law enforcement officers, if they drop an F bomb or something then: “Awp! [SNAPS FINGERS] that’s it! Boom.”
BEN: Into the wagon you go.
DANIEL: Those laws should be off the books.
CEDAR: I agree. that, like, laws like this that can be used in this way, definitely should be taken off the books and something like this is almost comical that it is still a law! I didn’t realise that there were still laws against public cursing like this, so that was kind of… that’s news to me as well. But yeah — I agree with everything that both of you have said.
BEN: Only in ‘Murka say, like there is that thick thick and healthsome vein of Puritanism that still runs way deep!
DANIEL: Oh, don’t forget that one Australian guy who tried to have something like the c- word on his sandwich board sign with regard to Tony Abbott, and then went to court. Got thrown out, but…
BEN: True.
DANIEL: You know, whose speech gets protected?
BEN: Indeed.
DANIEL: All right, well, that’s all the news for now. I think maybe it would be a good idea to take a track but if you have any comments — sweary or not — about anything that you’ve heard, why don’t you get them to me right now? 9260-9210 to get me in the studio. You can also send me an email: talkthetalk@rtrfm.com.au.
BEN: You can catch us on all of the relevant socials. We are @talkpod on Twitter, and we are talkthetalkpodcast all of the other places.
DANIEL: But now let’s listen to “Missing Words” by the Selector on RTRFM 92.1.
[MUSIC]
BEN: Welcome back to our last Talk the Talk on RTRFM, and today, to help us herald the end of an era in our current iteration, we are joined by a wonderful very special guest from across the desert, Cedar Brown. Welcome to the show! Well, re-welcome to the show, because you hung out for the news, as well.
CEDAR: Thank you. Such a pleasure to be here on your last show!
DANIEL: It’s great to have you.
BEN: You get to say I was there for the death of Talk the Talk!
CEDAR: I don’t know if I want to say that! But thank you for the option.
BEN: It’s not your fault! It’s not your fault — you just witnessed it, like one of those like real staunch sort of like single-tear-down-the-cheek people would like a funeral. or something like that.
DANIEL: We’re keeping it positive. How about a supernova? What about that?
BEN: Ooo, a quasar! Yeah, dig it.
DANIEL: Okay. Cedar is a linguist at the University of Melbourne. I was very pleased to be at a presentation at ALS, the Australian Linguistic Society 2019 to hear your presentation.
CEDAR: Yeah, it’s a pleasure to give a presentation and I’m so glad that you were [UNINTELLIGIBLE].
DANIEL: But Cedar, you do study pronouns. That is your jam, right?
CEDAR: Yes, yes it is.
DANIEL: Can you tell us anything about yourself that maybe the listening audience would need to know about you, or your work? Give me some background here, if you don’t mind.
CEDAR: Yeah, no — so I am a non-binary person myself. I use THEY/THEM pronouns. And I have been doing research with people, I guess, in my queer communities because I feel like those perspectives are really important, and often missing from research looking at people in any sort of marginalised group. I think it’s really important that people from those groups are actually doing the research themselves.
DANIEL: We sure do make pronouns do a lot of work. I mean, nobody asks, “What’s your verb?” “What’s your determiner?” You know, “What’s your interjection?” But when it comes to “What’s your pronoun?” that’s kind of a big deal! What’s going on here?
CEDAR: Yeah, definitely! So I feel like definitely pronouns are by far the most frequent parts of speech that carry gender in the English language, and like I guess a standard way — the standard way of speaking sees people frequently using pronouns, and so a person’s gender is consistently being pointed out through pronoun use when someone’s talking about them, in a way that just isn’t the case with other parts of speech. And so of course, there are like gendered titles and gendered nouns, from MAN and WOMAN to things even like HOST and HOSTESS and those sort of gender differences that have sort of gone away a lot through feminist language reform, but those sort of things are by far less frequent. And so I guess that’s why pronouns have taken so much of the burden, in terms of this.
DANIEL: What was it like when I asked, “What’s your pronoun?” when we were getting ready for the show. Was that welcome? or nosy?
CEDAR: It’s a bit complex, because that kind of question really depends on who you are, as the person who’s asking it, and what the context of it is. So you asking me this question before the show of me as a non-binary researcher who works with pronouns is not something that I experienced as, like, nosy or intrusive or anything. But in cases when I was not out as non-binary, I would have found being asked this question in any kind of circumstance incredibly anxiety inducing and I still do have this reaction in spaces where I don’t trust that the people there are actually committed to honoring my pronouns. I think that that’s important. So I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s nosy because pronouns are a pretty public thing, being so frequent in language, and so often perceived as obligatory in language. But definitely this kind of question can put someone in an uncomfortable position of having to make a sort of split-second decision on how out they want to be in a particular situation, or to a particular group of people.
BEN: Can I ask, Cedar, then — in terms of your own sort of personal sense of safety as you sort of drift through existence — does that mean then, in certain because — so one of the interesting aspects of the way that we do the show is that, you know, you’re in Melbourne, I’m in Perth, Daniel’s in Perth, and we don’t have any video link up whatsoever. Right? Like, I have no visual cues, no visual information about anything to do with you. And so, in like sort of face-to-face social circumstances, if you did and still do find sort of people inquiring if you’re not feeling safe about pronouns as kind of quite anxiety inducing, does that mean, then, that your sort of default position in those positions is just to sort of… for lack of a better phrase — and if this is offensive, I’m really sorry — but kind of fly under that sort of, that out radar?
CEDAR: Yeah, so personally for myself, that is my experience of things. And this, of course — I think this is really an interesting point — relates to how visible someone is as trans in different circumstances. And so people who are more visibly trans do have to deal with a lot more questions and people reacting in different ways around their gender, and people who are like less visibly trans don’t have as much of that.
BEN: I guess there’s a sort of like a sort of a greater baseline stimuli to every interaction.
CEDAR: Yeah, definitely, but I think that that’s why a lot of the movement around pronoun sharing is so important because it is a way of, I guess decoupling kind of that kind of stimuli of how someone looks from what gender they are, and what pronouns they might use.
DANIEL: Hmmm.
CEDAR: And so that is why kind of questions like this are, I guess important in a sense and why people sharing their pronouns is important because it means that it is… yeah, I guess sort of decoupling this sort of like cultural idea that people have that you should be able to perceive someone’s gender just by looking at them. I think that a way that people can maybe signal that they are going to be mindful of people’s pronouns is to introduce themselves with their own pronouns.
BEN: Oh, okay, that’s interesting.
CEDAR: Yeah, and I think that when, like, in my research participants have spoken about this being something that they’ve kind of appreciated more than being asked themself. Like, someone, a cis person kind of introducing themself with their pronouns and so that they feel maybe more comfortable to, maybe down the line, say what their pronouns are, as well.
BEN: Okay, that’s a really interesting idea. That’s great.
DANIEL: Well, I love the idea of sort of being very upfront about it: Hey, my name’s Daniel and my pronouns are HE, but I also like THEY, you know. And in fact, this is something that I have in my — I think a lot of us have this in our email signature now. It’s kind of — I don’t know — I don’t want to, like, cast aspersions, but it seems kind of trendy, you know. And it’s easy for cis people or people more obviously on the binary spectrum, like me, you know — I feel like I’m doing something good. And it sounds like some of your research with NB people kind of bears that out.
CEDAR: Yeah, definitely.
DANIEL: But at the same time it’s kind of fraught.
CEDAR: So yeah, definitely. I think the issues come when cis people are sharing their pronouns in a way to sort of index a socially progressive identity, without then actually being mindful of other people’s pronouns or themselves interrogating gender assumptions.
BEN: So, just sort of performative value signalling.
CEDAR: Yeah, yeah, definitely. When it is that kind of value signalling thing, or like a trendy thing as you said earlier, then I think that’s kind of where there are a lot of issues around it. Also, if there isn’t actually institutional support or a supportive culture in, say, like a workspace where people might be sharing their pronouns in their email signatures or in a social space, it might feel fine and safe for cis people to put their pronouns in their email signatures, when it actually wouldn’t be safe or okay for trans people to do so.
BEN: Right.
CEDAR: And this is something that definitely came up in my research: that people felt that kind of highlighting to be difficult, that… yeah, it was okay for their cis colleague to do it, but they felt that it might put their job or their social sort of standing within their job in sort of an unsafe or risky place. Pronoun sharing — I’m particularly when, like sort of, in-person face-to-face… different ways of pronoun sharing put trans and questioning people in this position where they feel that they have to misgender themselves by stating pronouns that they don’t identify with, or they feel uncomfortable with, or outing themself in feeling sort of forced to reveal their trans status to the group they’re in. Another thing within pronoun sharing is that people can maybe not take it seriously, or make a bit of a joke about it, or more overtly be hostile, and so by having kind of practices that maybe aren’t the norm for a lot of people, it can actually invite that hostility that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.
DANIEL: Oof.
BEN: That’s certainly something that jibes with my experience institutionally. When you bring in little things like this, people… Now, it’s like sort of open season to make snide comments here and there that can be overheard, and that sort of thing. It’s really gross.
CEDAR: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so that means that something that was sort of put in place to be inclusive and to support trans people ends up, yeah, creating a space where their identities or practices that are seen to support them are sort of targeted in this way. And then, yeah, the other thing that came up a lot again again sort of noted this earlier is that these kind of practices are among practices that can be slotted in to index kind of social progressive identity, without actually being followed up with being mindful of trans people. And so people sometimes got suspicious of those kind of practices, if they’re not within a context where they’re actually being followed up and taken seriously.
DANIEL: I agree that this shouldn’t be the only thing that we’re doing to support trans and NB people. Do you have any suggestions on how else we can do it? What are some other things that maybe I, as a cis het guy, should be doing?
CEDAR: That’s a good question. I think having conversations with other people, other cis people, about these things so that it’s not and trans and gender-diverse people who are having to have the conversations, so it’s not that someone has never heard of the fact that someone could use THEY/THEM pronouns until they meet someone who does I think is really important, and something that is a good thing to be doing. I think as well just making sure that you are like… listening to people who are trans, like following trans speakers or artists or academics. And reading widely always is important to, like, stay up to date with what people are thinking and not just be, I don’t know, putting something in because it’s sort of is recommended by a department or an institution or something like that, but be actually engaging with conversations that are happening because, yeah as you both would know like language and like the context around it is continuously evolving and changing and there’s different voices being added to the conversation. So staying abreast of what is being spoken about I think is really important.
BEN: Can I run a couple of things past you then, Cedar, that I have stumbled across in some of those sort of spaces in forums?
CEDAR: Yeah, sure!
BEN: To see what you think, not to put you on the spot as like the spokesperson for all NB and trans people, but more just, like, based on the research that you’ve done and the data that you’ve got back, like how these things might fly, to your understanding?
CEDAR: Yeah.
BEN: So I’ve got one here — by the way, both of these come from my partner who is waaaay better versed on these issues than I am. I told her I was doing a show about this stuff and she sent me some of her very best suggestions. The first one comes from a Twitter user called Eli Erlick, and it goes: “If you’re worried about asking pronouns outing trans students, here’s a simple solution.” This is relevant to me ’cause I’m a teacher — and it’s basically just like a slip of paper that you give someone that has like name, what name you want me to call you in class, what pronouns you would like me to use, and you know and then other stuff that you would put on a slip like this, like “Tell me three interesting things about yourself,” and “Tell me, you know, like, how many family members you have,” and stuff like that. Do you reckon that would be a good way, or would that still, based on your data, do you think really put people on the spot still?
CEDAR: I think that definitely, yeah, participants that I have spoken to, like, non-binary people I’ve spoken to in the course of my research have suggested things like this, that can be done by teachers. So yeah, definitely having a slip, like, at the start of the class or having some sort of thing when someone registers the class, I think that that is a lot better than making people kind of out themselves or talk about their pronouns to everyone in a first class. I still think that it might be experienced pretty complexly by trans people or especially like questioning people as well, who are not maybe sure or don’t feel like they can say what their identity is to people yet because they’re kind of in the closet in kind of all aspects of their life. And so I think that it’s not going to assure you that it’s not going to be experienced complexly, but I think that that is a lot better than other ways that encourage other people to disclose in a public way.
BEN: All right. And I’ve got a second hot take. This one comes from Devon Michael Lowe @thatboyyoulike. Pretty simple little one: The key to not misgendering strangers is to stop gendering strangers. Now I have a follow up question to that suggestion. If I just default THEY/THEM, right? Like, if I’m just wafting through life, is there a chance that I will still make a trans or NB person uncomfortable by defaulting to THEY/THEM?
CEDAR: Um, yes.
BEN: Okay. Good! This is good. This is what I want to know. My follow up question is: what way are you aware of, given the way our language works and how, like, pronouns function in English, how can you not misgender people, even on that level? Like, what’s the path you chart through the, sort of, the murky waters?
CEDAR: So I think one of the big things with what you were suggesting then of just using THEY/THEM for everyone is that trans people and non-binary — sorry, and binary trans people who might in some way be gender nonconforming or who might not “pass” in…
DANIEL: Air quotes!
CEDAR: Air quotes. Yeah are THEY-THEMmed a lot more often then cis people, and that can be quite disaffirming. And for gender-diverse people don’t use THEY/THEM pronouns — yeah, they can find that quite disaffirming. That said, like, I think a lot of people in queer communities just do default to THEY/THEM for everyone, and that is something that I tend to do as well. I think that these are complex sort of issues, and I think that nothing that you will necessarily be able to do is going to mean that it’s not going to be complex.
BEN: There’s no like a day-one patch for this stuff. Like, you can’t just like fix it.
CEDAR: Yeah! Yeah, definitely. And I think it’s like not so much this sort of — I guess it is the language people use, but I think it’s like — this mentality that many people have that, if they put inclusive practices in place, it’ll somehow protect them from complexity, or render them immune from critique.
BEN: Right.
CEDAR: But these practices or these ways of speaking about people are often going to be complex for people in marginalised groups, and I think that there’s this expectation that people can roll out inclusivity practices without engagement with communities, and then it will just, yeah, not be complex anymore. But it is complex for the people in that group, and so I think it’s kind of a privileged position to feel like you should be able to do something and the complexity for yourself will go away.
BEN: What I’m hearing you say is: there ain’t no way you’re gonna avoid the rocks, so put on your big boy cis pants, and just deal with the discomfort when it comes.
CEDAR: Yeah, yeah.
BEN: Cool.
CEDAR: And yeah, within that, like I think doing the best that you can, and then being open and receptive to what people say, and like keeping abreast of the conversation — the conversations being had around these things — is the best way to kind of go forward with that.
DANIEL: Kirby Conrod suggested something interesting on Twitter. They said that it would be interesting for cis people to try making THEY your pronoun, and saying “Hey, my name’s Daniel, and I use THEY.” And then watch what happens. See what people do.
BEN: Oh, yeah, right, because then you are sort of inviting some people to, sort of like, impose on you all of their hang-ups.
DANIEL: At the very least, you’d see what trans and NB people go through. in a typical day.
BEN: Well, at least in those minor interactions. Not like the full spectrum of…
CEDAR: If you do this, you will understand everything!
BEN: I didn’t know that wizardry was an actual literal thing! You just said a magic word and then you just had all of the experience! Like The Matrix, where you can just download sh__ to our brain!
DANIEL: You will understand one millionth of what trans and NB people go through. I just want to finish with a quote. This one’s from the Voice of America News. It’s about a linguist, Maxwell Schmidt, who’s a non-binary person who says, “When I go out of my way, and I say my pronouns are HE and THEY, and somebody uses those pronouns correctly with me, then I feel seen and I feel respected.” Has that been your experience?
CEDAR: Yeah, definitely. I think it is something about seeing people and respecting people and I think, like — yeah, it can definitely be a mental shift for people to change the pronouns they’re using for someone, or to use pronouns that they’re unfamiliar with. But I think it does really respect the humanity of the people in your life to put the time and effort into practicing and getting it right, because it does mean a lot to people.
DANIEL: And if you mess it up, apologise and move on.
CEDAR: Yeah, definitely. And I think that this is something that came up in my research a lot: that people were having interactions, people would mess up their pronouns and apologise extremely profusely, make the whole conversation about that. And that was really experienced as something quite negative by people because the person is possibly feeling pretty bad and sensitive around it, and has enough going on managing their own dysphoria to be then having to appease someone else’s guilt and having more focus put on them and their pronouns.
BEN: Yeah, right. It’s like a catch-22.
CEDAR: Yeah, yeah. But if someone just like simply apologises, correct themselves and move on, then I think that’s the best.
DANIEL: We’ve been talking with Cedar Brown. They are a linguist at the University of Melbourne doing work with pronouns. Cedar, thanks so much for talking the talk with us today.
CEDAR: Thank you so much for having me on.
DANIEL: Going to stick around for Word of the Week?
CEDAR: Yeah.
BEN: Huzzah!
DANIEL: This one is Boards of Canada with “Nothing Is Real” on RTRFM 92.1. Words of the Week coming right after this.
[MUSIC]
BEN: The time is come. I have been looking forward to this day for 395 shows. This is it — this is the very last ever Word of the Week. And I’ve got to tell you, Daniel, like every other time in my life —
DANIEL: Ben…
BEN: when I have finally experienced…
DANIEL: Ben!
BEN: …the thing that I am looking forward to so much…
DANIEL: BEN!!!
BEN: …it’s underwhelming.
[LAUGHTER]
DANIEL: You know, just because we’re finishing with RTRFM doesn’t mean that we’re finishing with Word of the Week going forward.
BEN: Don’t take this from me, Daniel! I don’t care that it’s disappointing. Don’t take this away, all right? This is the end. This is the end of Word of the Week.
DANIEL: Nope, we’re going to bring it forward.
BEN: Oh, come on! This is such a great opportunity to let it die!
DANIEL: We’ll talk about it. We’ll talk about it.
BEN: Ughhhh.
DANIEL: Okay. Word of the Week is of course the words that are breaking, that are trending, that are just on our minds. Cedar Brown from the University of Melbourne has a word for us. Cedar, what you got?
CEDAR: Well, I feel a lot of pressure now this is the like, amazing last word that you’ve been waiting for…
DANIEL: Bring it!
BEN: Cedar — look, it’s fine. Daniel’s on the show. You can’t bring the worst thing to the table, guaranteed.
[LAUGHTER]
DANIEL: [STRONGBAD VOICE] You suck.
CEDAR: So the word that I brought this week is the word “misc”. So like, the shortened version of “miscellaneous”.
BEN: Spelled M-I-S-C?
CEDAR: Yes.
DANIEL: Misc. How is this different from “miscellaneous”, though?
CEDAR: So, I feel like I have seen this word really rise in popularity over the last month, or the last — yeah, the last little while — being used in a lot of ways. So, just in the way I guess — firstly, that miscellaneous would be used — so people talk about, like, misc topics or misc content or misc items but just, yeah, kind of replacing a lot of other words that you might use for those kind of things with the word misc. And then you have sort of uses of it where someone uses it as a noun as well. Like, I’m selling some misc, or something like that.
BEN: Oh! that’s fun! I like that. Wow! Bric-a-brac got condensed down a lot!
DANIEL: Yeah! Misc.
CEDAR: But then there’s a use that I find like an extension that I find really interesting as well, where it can come to mean sort of when things are — I guess in the way that things are miscellaneous, so that they are maybe scattered or don’t have a through line, but being used maybe about like a day, or a conversation, or something like that.
BEN: Oh, that’s fun. So like, last night was a bit misc.
CEDAR: Yeah, yeah — like that.
BEN: That’s awesome! I really like that. You definitely haven’t brought the worst Word of the Week to the table.
DANIEL: I should point out that Urban Dictionary dot com has an entry for misc. Oblivios from 2015 gave a sentence: “I saw a dog sitting on the roof of my neighbour’s house. Man, it was so misc.”
BEN: Oh, that’s wicked!
DANIEL: Yeah!
BEN: I like that. That’s really great. I’m 100 percent incorporating that.
CEDAR: I am so happy.
BEN: Yeah, no — Cedar, you just… you just pointed out towards the back bleachers, you knew exactly where it was going, you stepped up, and you swung.
DANIEL: Let’s try another one. This one is a new generational name, so we have…
BEN: Ugh, god — see, Cedar, you’ve already won.
[LAUGHTER]
DANIEL: We’ve got Boomers, we’ve got Gen X, we’ve got Millennials, we’ve got Zoomers. But what comes after Zoomers?
BEN: Oh, god, just stop… stop trying to make Zoomers happen, all right?
DANIEL: Why should I not make Zoomers happen? Zoomers is awesome!
BEN: ‘Cause you’re just Regina Georging all over the place. No, not — sorry — Gretchen Weinering all over the place.
DANIEL: I don’t want to Weiner all over the place, but I do like Generation Zed, or Zoomer. But the generation after that — the kids born after 2010-ish: Generation Alpha! I guess the alphabet wraps around.
BEN: Oh, okay, I see what’s going on there. Well, yeah — but like, okay, I’m — look, personally, the one inside me who kind of likes things to work well kind of goes, Well, we’re not moving on from Generation Omega, are we?
DANIEL: We’re going to do all the Greek letters.
BEN: Wouldn’t that be fun? Generation Lambda.
DANIEL: Ooo, I’d like that. That’s a ways away, though.
BEN: Yeah, true.
DANIEL: Any thoughts on this?
BEN: I hate it. I hate it. Like, just, this is terrible.
CEDAR: Why?
BEN: I hate all this, like, generational navel gazing that goes on. And I swear, the generations are getting like so much slimmer than they used to be. I feel like the Greatest Generation encompassed like 35 years.
DANIEL: No, no!
BEN: And then Generation Alpha is just like this tiny little sliver!
DANIEL: That’s what I thought too, but then I checked the timelines — the generally agreed-upon timelines — and every single generation including Boomers was somewhere between 18 to 25 years.
CEDAR: Wow.
BEN: Hang on — Generation Z was not 25 years.
DANIEL: Yeah, Generation Alpha is pretty short because it’s only expected to last until about 2025.
BEN: Wait — is that like a hell dark thing? Are we just accepting that climate change is ___ing us all by then?
DANIEL: Nnnno.
BEN: Okay.
DANIEL: But the Greatest Generation was 24 years, Silent Generation about 20 years, Boomers only 18 years. By the time we got to Generation X, that was only about 14 years. Millennials: a solid 20. So, it’s up and down.
BEN: Okay, there’s a bit of fluctuation, is what I’m hearing.
CEDAR: It makes sense, though, if the generations become slimmer because things are changing so quickly, and…
BEN: I guess that’s true.
CEDAR: …and I think with technology and everything, like the kind of way that people are communicating has the potential to really shift really exponentially, so…
DANIEL: Yeah, I’ll bet the ’20s aren’t going to be one thing. I bet we’re going to have to split a decade in two.
BEN: Do you guys want to hear my hottest take about a generation?
DANIEL: Okay, go.
BEN: Generation Z, whom I will forever and a day…
DANIEL: Zoomers.
BEN: …refuse to call Zoomers…
DANIEL: Zoomers.
BEN: …um, ’cause that is a terrible thing and should die in a dumpster fire.
DANIEL: [WHISPERS] Zoomersss…
BEN: Generation Z…
DANIEL: [ZOOMING NOISES]
BEN: …are, for the most part, actually really computer illiterate.
DANIEL: Oh, that’s interesting.
BEN: Yep. There’s my hot take. Because us Millennials and Gen Xers were, like, sat down at computers and discretely instructed like: This is how a file system works. This is how you copy paste. And a whole bunch of Gen Z just like had phablets in their hands for a lot of their lives, and so you put them in front of, like, an actual com-put-or, and they’re just like: WHAT DO I DO? How do I… wha… click on the hard WHAT‽ STOP IT! Like it’s just… it’s horrific to watch them. It makes my skin crawl.
CEDAR: What do you mean when you say like an actual computer? Like a desktop?
BEN: Yeah, like a desktop or a laptop.
DANIEL: Those things that don’t exist anymore.
BEN: Yeah! Those things which, for that entire generation, were just like the thing Dad uses at work, or like Mum uses at work or whatever.
DANIEL: You know at first, I thought: it seems weird to give a name to a generation until you know kind of what they’re like. But…
BEN: That’s true, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is true.
DANIEL: No, it’s not true because then I realised: that’s exactly how we name actual children. You have no idea what they’re like.
[LAUGHTER]
DANIEL: And so you just give them this name.
BEN: Well, not in all cultures, to be fair.
DANIEL: That’s true, you can be super hippy about it and just not give them a name and it’s just Baby Girl.
BEN: See, that’s always really stupid though, right? Because that creature has a name; it’s just not what a lot of people would consider… and like, if you just call it Baby Girl all the time, the child’s name becomes by default Baby Girl, right?
DANIEL: Yeah.
BEN: Like, that’s how names work!
DANIEL: Well, the professional skier Picabo Street — she was just Baby Girl Street for a long time, and then legal officials said “Pick a name.” So they let her pick it. By this time she was 5 years old [actually 3 — D]. She chose the name of her favourite game: peekaboo.
BEN: Wow.
DANIEL: So that became her name. Picabo Street.
BEN: I feel like someone really had to sit 5-year-old Baby Girl down and be like, “Really? At five, peekaboo is still your favourite game? Come on, girl.
DANIEL: That’s… I thought that too!
BEN: I have a 5 year old, right? We play much doper games that that.
DANIEL: Let’s go on to our last Word of the Week. and this one comes from Felicia “Ray” Davin on Twitter. The word is “hetrospect”. And it means “realising things you did in your youth were not in fact straight.” In hetrospect, I realise that that one experience at summer camp might have been a bit of a clue.
BEN: Mmm.
CEDAR: Wow.
BEN: Gosh, there’s some funny around-the-table stories that, like, belong in the hetrospect subcategory, aren’t there?
DANIEL: I’d say. I don’t have a lot of queer experiences myself, so I’m going to leave that to other people.
BEN: I’m thinking more about times that I’ve heard where like, you know, a partner of a person sort of comes out, for lack of a better phrase, and then that person who was with that person who came out starts, sort of like, looking back in hetrospect at a few things and kind of goes, oh, right.
DANIEL: Oh, okay.
[LONG PAUSE AND THEN SIMULTANEOUSLY]
BEN: Well! I guess we’re done then.
DANIEL: Okay! That’s… I guess that’s it!
[LAUGHTER]
DANIEL: We’ve got misc, Generation Alpha, and hetrospect, our Words of the Week.
BEN: Misc absolutely wins. What a tour de force of a word, compared to the other garbage.
CEDAR: Oh, I love hetrospect!
BEN: No, actually, that’s true. I was just absolutely… like, poor hetrospect just got caught in the crossfire on that one. Generation Alpha: go away.
DANIEL: Cedar Brown, thanks so much for coming on the show. It’s been great to have you.
CEDAR: Thank you.
BEN: I think we should get Cedar back when we, like a phoenix from the ashes, emerge in our new more powerful configuration.
CEDAR: That would be beautiful.
DANIEL: That sounds like a great idea. To round things out, let’s listen to “Outta Words” by Pat Chow. Because we are. On RTRFM 92.1. Your comments after this. Hang tight.
DANIEL: You’re here in the comments section. Thanks to everybody for all your lovely comments.
Let’s start with John, who says: you know, this non-binary stuff is all a bit confusing. Yeah, I hear you, John. Will non-binary people, asks John, get offended if we just go ahead and use HE or SHE? And I can’t really speak to that, but from what I’ve learned from Cedar and other folks is: maybe they won’t get offended. Maybe they won’t say anything. But it could just be one more example of people not caring. And I get the feeling that a lot of people get a lot of that! But maybe if we can take a bit of care and respect, maybe we’ll just make someone feel a tiny bit happy. That’s pretty good! I like that idea!
It’s something that Ben said once years ago, and I always sort of kept it. You know, Ben’s really smart. He’s the smartest one of us. And he said: it’s something I don’t understand. This isn’t my experience. But even though I don’t understand it, and it makes me a little bit uncomfortable, I can feel a little bit uncomfortable if it makes you feel better. It doesn’t cost anything. Maybe that’s something I can do. And I always liked that.
A shout out to Kurt who phoned up. He said about the RSLWA controversy: he didn’t agree with the decision by any stretch, but do you think that we could ramp it back a little bit and show some respect? Because without the RSL we wouldn’t have a country. Kurt, I like where you’re going with that. Thanks for reining us in a little bit.
Squirrel phoned up, and said big ups to me and to Ben and to Kylie and Hedvig. Big thanks for everything. So many people have said so many great things.
For example, this is Michael: Hey, Talk the Talk team. I just wanted to say thanks for all the great shows over the years. Tuesdays have definitely been a highlight for me. Looking forward to see what the future holds for Talk the Talk. Me too.
And Liam says: Please don’t leave me. Oh, dear!
Well, another one from Mike. Mike says: “I was listening to the news portion of Episode 392 where you were talking about Madonna and her accent, and I found that quite interesting. I was thinking of writing in and was waiting for a sign to guide my decision, and then in the next segment you discussed a paper about babies and counting. The author of that paper happens to be my cousin, Lisa Feigenson. You actually pronounced the name wrong — the EI is pronounced ‘i’ as in ‘white’ as opposed to ‘a’ as in ‘weight’. Sorry about that! But most people who aren’t German do, so it’s no problem.” You know, what are the odds of that happening? That is cool. Mike continues: “Anyway, my comment was that I am one of those people who pick up and start using accents almost immediately. I call it “accent sympathy”, and I am highly accent sympathetic. I haven’t lived in another country, but when I go to different parts of the US, I tend to start using that accent. I think it’s almost a form of code switching for me. I’m not entirely sure why I do it, but I know that I have always had a feeling of being an outsider, and I think it may have to do with that. I guess it’s ultimately insecurity.” Well, Mike, I think that’s really interesting because I think a lot of people say this. “Oh, you know, I tend to switch accents really easily. I must be really insecure.” or, you know, really malleable.” I think that what you’re calling accent sympathy is a great thing. It’s just another way of saying accommodation. And accommodation is something that everybody does, unless there’s something super wrong with them. Accommodation doesn’t always equate to insecurity or having an unhealthily malleable personality or anything like that. It could just mean that you score high on empathy, or you know, being a nice person or things like that. Which sounds a lot better, wouldn’t you say? I would.
Now, let’s see. Beverley asks: “Good morning, Daniel and Ben. Where will we be able to hear your show after today? Sorry, but I have been busy with our business and missed the details. Have been a fan for many many years.” Oof. It seems like a long time since I first walked into the red room, Studio A. Learned how to do the buttons and play them confusingly. Lots of mistakes. Actually, top memory: the time when Ben and I were doing it live in the studio, and I accidentally swung in this chair with my knee. Bashed the control panel under the desk, and brought down the entire studio in the middle of the show. [LAUGHS] I think I said to the person I was on the phone with: what have I done? That didn’t make it to air, obviously. We quickly switched studios. Nothing ever was as disastrous as that. And I hope that there’s no big disasters in future. You will be able to hear us because Ben, Hedvig, and I aren’t going away. We’ll be taking a break to retool, we’ll be reappearing in a different form. If you subscribe to Talk the Talk anywhere you get your podcasts, you will get the latest about how to find us when we return. Maybe with a new name, maybe with an old name, nothing’s clear at this point, everything is malleable, and time is a flat circle.
I’d like to say a huge thank you to RTRFM for putting us on the air all these years. As I told Tom in the promo, linguists come up to me and they say: I can’t believe that you’re getting an hour every week to talk about linguistics? on the radio? And I think, you know, it’s been a rare thing. Being able to talk about something I’m passionate about. And that so many people have really caught on to it and have really enjoyed the show. It’s been an amazing place to be. RTR is an amazing place to grow. They gave us a place to cut our teeth, to learn how to do this. I hope that you will continue to listen to RTRFM, that you will continue to support RTR, and the service that they give with your donations and your time and your volunteering. It is a great place. And RTR makes Perth more amazing by bringing the music. And music is one of those few things that helps us to feel. It’s what makes a long life worth living. So a big thank you. This place will always be in our heart. We’ll always kind of come back to these memories.
Also great memories of guests sharing their knowledge. All the great linguists and all the great speakers. People who have put themselves out there and donated their time to us, just because they wanted to make the world a little less ignorant — make a world a slightly smarter place, and I hope that we’ve been a part of that process.
Special shout out to Adie, to Carol, and Chris, Lissa, Kate, and Termy, but also a huge thanks to our friends Bob, Christopher, Matt, Andrew, Kitty, Lord Mortis, Helen, Binh, Jack, Nigel, Damien, Dustin, Larry, Michael, Whitney, and Gilles.
Darcy is going to be taking us Out to Lunch pretty soon, filling in.
Fifi has just emailed: we’re all a bit wiser for your program. You will be missed. Thank you, that’s great Fifi.
Last words. Please remember these two things: it’s normal for language to change, and it’s normal for people to use language differently from each other. I hope that you keep thinking about language, that you stay curious about language, and have fun with it.
Just a quick one from Andrew: “You guys are the best. I’ll be sure to follow your next incarnation.” Oh, good. I’m looking forward to it! It’s going to be good.
I’d like to thank all of you for listening. Until we get together again, keep talking.
[END ANNOUNCEMENT]
BEN: Talk the Talk is an RTRFM podcast. RTRFM is an independent community radio station that relies on listeners for support. You can become a subscriber rtrfm.com.au.subscribe.
HEDVIG: If you like Talk the Talk and want to help promote good language science podcasting, you can become a patron at patreon.com/talkthetalk. You can also leave us a review on iTunes, Facebook, or your podcaster of choice. Or tell some friends about us. All those things will help people find us.
DANIEL: Our theme is by Ah Trees, and you can find them on Facebook and Bandcamp, and you can find us on Twitter @talkpod. We’re talkthetalkpodcast on Facebook and Instagram, we’re on Mastodon, and you can find out about all our episodes on our website, talkthetalkpodcast.com.
