Welcome to our mailbag, where all the really great questions come from.
- Why do we say “You’re welcome”?
- How can varelse mean ‘a being’ in Swedish, but ‘a room’ in Danish?
- In sci-fi, what happens when the universal translator breaks?
Category: discourse and dialogue
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 …
327: How We Talk (featuring Nick Enfield and Simeon Floyd)
29 May 2018
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Daniel Midgley
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What is the meaning of um?
We make hesitation noises and tiny pauses in conversation all the time, but what’s the meaning behind them? And is it true that different cultures have different tolerances for silence?
We’re talking to …
321: Language Face to Face (featuring Rachel Romeo)
17 April 2018
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Daniel Midgley
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Babies are linguistic super-geniuses!
They know a lot about their own language, and they’re able to infer things from other languages. But a new study shows that unloading bulk language upon them isn’t as important as the conversational turns that …
316: Numbers and the Making of Us (featuring Caleb Everett)
7 March 2018
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Daniel Midgley
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When we got numbers, things really started to happen.
How do other languages handle numbers? How do pre-linguistic children conceptualise them? And how did the development of numbers influence our development as humans?
We’re talking to anthropological linguist and author …
253: Secret Professional Slang (featuring Dr Brian Goldman and Ji-Soo Kweon)
19 July 2016
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Daniel Midgley
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Do you know what doctors are really saying?
How about tech support people? Or butchers? They’ve all got their own jargon that they use to communicate amongst themselves — or to exclude.
Linguist Daniel Midgley helps you crack the code on …
Become a patron
We're Because Language now, and you can support the show by using our Patreon page. Plenty of audio, video, and text goodies. Thanks to all our patrons!
Become a Patron!About Talk the Talk
Talk the Talk was a podcast about language that ran on community radio station RTRFM in Perth Australia. It aired on Tuesdays at 11am from about 2009 until early 2020.
Many people took part, but the main crew was Daniel Midgley, Ben Ainslie, Kylie Sturgess, and Hedvig Skirgård.
All the regular and bonus episodes are here for your listening pleasure, along with the promos, where Daniel would tell what the upcoming show was about. Some shows have Cutting Room Floor posts, which contain fun stuff that didn’t make it into the regular show. There are also full interviews with our guests.
The team continues its linguistic adventures as Because Language, and you can hear their zany exploits at becauselanguage.com.
Connect to us online
Categories
accent
animal communication
Australia
Australian languages
bad linguistics
books
brain and language
children
code switching
cognition
computing
emoji
etymology
games
gender
gesture
grammar
historical linguistics
interviews
language acquisition
language change
language evolution
language policy
LGBTIAQQ* issues
minority languages
morphology
pedantry
peeving
phonology
politics
pronunciation
signed languages
skepticism
sociolinguistics
spelling
swearing
syntax
taboos
translation
Uncategorized
variation
words of the year
world Englishes
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writing
List of all episodes
- RSS feed for all TtT episodes
- 395: Outed or Misgendered (with Cedar Brown)
- 394: What’s Your Pronoun? (with Dennis Baron)
- 393: Push and Pull (Live Q&A)
- 392: Your Voice (with Jane Setter)
- 391: Words of the Year 2019
- 390: Words of the Week of the Year 2019 (Live Q&A)
- 389: Mailbag of Pronouns
- 388: Lies, All Lies (with Georgina Heydon, Heather Wilson, and Amanda Hamilton-Hollaway)
- 387: The Language of Emotion (with Maïa Ponsonnet, Steven Gagau, and Jodie Kell)
- 386: English Needs These Idioms (Live Q&A)
- 385: You Look Like a Thing (with Janelle Shane)
- 384: Mailbag of Welcome
- 383: Decolonising the Archive (with Emma Murphy and Caroline Hughes)
- 382: There’s No Enhance Button (with Helen Fraser)
- 381: A Hard Spell (Live Q&A)
- 380: Emoji Innovations (Live Q&A)
- 379: Indigenous Signed Languages (with Rodney Adams and Steph Tisdell)
- 378: Bugger All (with Isabelle Burke)
- 377: Mailbag of Uncomfortableness
- 376: Language Hotspots (with Xia Hua)
- 375: Community Size Matters (with Limor Raviv)
- 374: Polari, Britain’s Lost Gay Language (with Paul Baker, Grant Mathumba Thompson, and Alexandra Marley)
- 373: Mailbag of Processes
- 372: Because Internet (with Gretchen McCulloch and Grant Mathumba Thompson)
- 371: -nado, -holic, -pocalypse: Combining Forms (Live Q&A)
- 370: Named Wrong (Live Q&A)
- 369: The Grammarian Is In (with Ellen Jovin and Pete Swanton)
- 368: Poetry (with Pete Swanton)
- Lexitecture crossover (with Ryan Paulsen and Amy Hanlon)
- 367: Your Inner Prescriptivist (with Alyssa Severin and Pete Swanton)
- 366: Oxbows (Live Q&A)
- 365: Difficult Words (with Jane Solomon, Alexandra Marley, and Janice Nalorlman)
- 364: Mailbag of R-R-R-R
- 363: Talking Race (with Jessi Grieser)
- 362: Gesture in Mind (with Violet Wardrill)
- 361: Helping My Language Live – Language Activism (with Margaret Florey)
- 360: Familiolects (Live Q&A)
- 359: False Friends (Live Q&A)
- 358: Mailbag of Mallets
- 357: The F-Word (with Jesse Sheidlower)
- 356: The The Show (with Nick Wilson)
- 355: The Bee Show (with Stephen Mann)
- 354: Shiny Crumb (Live Q&A)
- 353: Mailbag of Highly Intelligent Listeners
- 352: Wait (with Sali Tagliamonte)
- 351: A Perfect Alphabet (or, The Royal Tweet)
- 350: Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish (with Zalmen Mlotek and Motl Didner)
- 349: Words of the Year 2018
- Fluent Show crossover (with Kerstin Cable and Lindsay Williams)
- 348: Microcosm (featuring Rachel Hendery)
- 347: Not Rocket Surgery (featuring Kari Sullivan and William Black)
- 346: What Works (featuring Dan Dediu)
- 345: Talk on the Wild Side (featuring Lane Greene)
- 344: Coincidences and Surprising Connections (featuring Bethwyn Evans)
- 343: Moon Moons and Reduplication Reduplication
- 342: Mailbag of Vague
- 341: What the F (featuring Benjamin Bergen)
- 340: Ethics in Big Data (featuring Hannah Rashkin and Maarten Sap)
- Fiat Lex crossover (with Kory Stamper and Steve Kleinedler)
- 339: How English Could Be Way Cooler
- 338: Signed Language (featuring Ulrike Zeshan and Christy Filipich)
- 337: Getting the Bias out of Data (featuring Robyn Speer and Kai-Wei Chang)
- 336: Kinship Terms
- 335: One Hundred Things (featuring Emily Bender)
- 334: Mailbag of Darkness
- Radiothon 2018 special
- 333: When Sapir Met Whorf (featuring Mikael Parkvall and Östen Dahl)
- 332: Social (featuring Ketan Joshi, live at Disrupted 2018)
- Vocal Fries crossover (with Carrie Gillon and Megan Figueroa)
- Solo shows mid-2018
- 331: Koko
- 330: Making Words for Miriwoong (featuring Knut Olawsky)
- 329: Pokémonikers (featuring Stephanie Shih)
- 328: She Writes Dictionaries (featuring Jane Solomon)
- 327: How We Talk (featuring Nick Enfield and Simeon Floyd)
- 326: Linguistics in the Pub (live with Pint of Science, featuring Amy Budrikis and Troy Reynolds)
- 325: Mailbag of Moisture
- 324: Translanguaging (featuring Rhonda Oliver)
- 323: Flip Yeah Taboo Avoidance
- 322: Sense of Direction (featuring Alice Gaby)
- 321: Language Face to Face (featuring Rachel Romeo)
- 320: Love Your Larynx (featuring Thila Raja)
- 319: The Prodigal Tongue (featuring Lynne Murphy)
- Solo Show: One for @talkrtr
- 318: Mailbag of Awesome
- 317: With Big Data Comes Big Responsibility (featuring Seán Roberts)
- 316: Numbers and the Making of Us (featuring Caleb Everett)
- 315: Grammar Day
- 314: International Mother Language Day (featuring Ingrid Piller)
- 313: That’s Cool. That’s Hot. (featuring Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm)
- 312: Words of the Year 2017 (featuring Grant Barrett)
- Interview with VSauce! Brain Candy tour
- 311: Quick Shots 2: The Quickening
- 310: Sign Language Gloves (featuring Adam Schembri and William Bowe)
- 309: How Linguistic Is Neuro-linguistic Programming?
- 308: Pet Translator
- 307: Sexy Neural Net (featuring Janelle Shane)
- 306: Deception Detection (featuring Victoria Rubin, Sarah Cornwell, and Sophie Richard)
- 305: Updating Shakespeare (featuring the artists of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival)
- 304: Genericide (live at Camp Doogs)
- 303: Creoles 2 (featuring John McWhorter, Knut Olawsky, & Ji-Soo Kweon)
- 302: Creoles 1 (featuring Damián Blasi)
- 301: Mailbag of Wonder
- 300: Is Grammar Elitist?
- 299: Men Splain Things to Me (featuring Lara B. Sharp)
- 298: West African Pidgin English
- 297: Let’s Hear It for the Speechies (featuring Jamaica Grantis)
- Radiothon Special 2017
- 296: Geophonetics, Round 3 (featuring Caleb Everett)
- 295: Yawuru (featuring Dalisa Pigram) – live at the Disrupted Festival
- 294: Trademarks and Slurs (featuring Simon Tam)
- 293: A Computer Walks into a Bar
- 292: Mailbag of Destiny
- 291: Covfefe
- 290: Language Does Not Determine Your Thoughts (Whorfianism)
- 289: What Helps Babies Learn Language?
- 288: Letters Lost
- 287: Is a Hot Dog a Sandwich?
- 286: Lexical Appropriation (featuring Nicole Holliday)
- 285: Quick Shots
- 284: Feral Children
- 283: Pun Intended (featuring Janani Krishnan-Jha and Hedvig Skirgård)
- 282: Why Subject First? (featuring Hedvig Skirgård)
- 281: The Emoji Code (featuring Vyvyan Evans)
- 280: Contractions
- 279: Mailbag – Competitive Edition
- 278: Like (featuring Alexandra D’Arcy)
- 277: All About Accents
- 276: English Only
- 275: The Linguistic Listician (featuring Arika Okrent)
- 274: Linguistic Activism (featuring Christine Mallinson)
- 273: Voice of the Apes
- 272: Sing Loud Sing Proud (featuring Jo Randell)
- 271: Words of the Year 2016
- 270: Post-Truth
- 269: Mailbag Episode
- 268: Dialect (featuring Kathryn Hymes and Hakan Seyalioglu)
- 267: Shakespeare and Marlowe (featuring Eve Siebert)
- 266: Names
- 265: Universal Grammar 2 (featuring Dan Everett and Lynne Murphy)
- 264: Spurious Etymologies (live at Camp Doogs)
- 263: We Manterrupt This Broadcast
- 262: Universal Grammar
- 261: Red Big Balloon (featuring Damián Blasi)
- 260: Promoting LOTE (featuring Annie Demosthenous)
- 259: Does Your Dog Understand You? (featuring Monica)
- 258: The Future of French (featuring Sophie Richard)
- 257: Alien Languages
- Radiothon 2016 Special
- 256: Numbers
- 255: Diagnosing from Words (featuring Katie Fraser)
- 254: Plagiarism
- 253: Secret Professional Slang (featuring Dr Brian Goldman and Ji-Soo Kweon)
- 252: The Tower of Babel
- 251: Brexit Language Fallout
- 250: Comma Sutra (featuring Louisa Fitzhardinge)
- 249: Big Big Mailbag
- 248: Dog Whistles and Dead Cats (featuring Howie Manns)
- 247: Singlish (featuring Sean Yeo)
- 246: Yiddish (featuring Ben Zimmer)
- 245: Language Fact or Fiction?
- 244: Brain Thesaurus (featuring David J. Peterson)
- 243: Synaesthesia
- 242: Swedish (featuring Hedvig Skirgård and Anna Melberg)
- 241: Emoji Disasters
- 240: Bite the Wax Tadpole
- 239: Animal Syntax
- 238: Questions, Questions
- 237: Hinglish (featuring Sana Bharadwaj)
- 236: Spelling Reform
- 235: Worst Words (featuring Don Watson)
- 234: Disruptive Language Tech
- 233: Comedy in Translation (featuring Kuah Jenhan)
- 232: Rabid Linguists
- 231: The Really Big Show (featuring Alexis Dubus and Len Collard)
- 230: End-of-Year Wrap-Up
- 229: Social Justice Lexicon (featuring Ji-Soo Kweon)
- 228: Ludlings
- 227: Are Emoji Words?
- 226: Shakespeare in Translation 2 (featuring Celeste Rodriguez Louro, Migdalia Cruz, and Taylor Mac)
- 225: Shakespeare in Translation 1 (featuring Lue Douthit)
- 224: Bad Linguistics
- 223: Mailbag
- 222: Brain, Body, Baby
- 221: Getting the Picture (featuring Matt Purver)
- 220: Not So Arbitrary
- 219: Eggcorns
- 218: The F-Word
- 217: Homo naledi and Language
- 216: The Cutting Edge
- 215: Is Cantonese Endangered? (featuring Zoe Lam)
- 214: Whistled Languages
- Radiothon 2015 Special
- 213: Short and Sweet
- 212: Fourth Floor
- 211: Newsbag
- 210: Listener Feedback
- 209: Typography
- 208: Bogan Linguistics (featuring Roz Rowen)
- 207: Language Learning App Road-Test
- 206: Baby Talk, or Not?
- 205: Lost Writing
- 204: Shibboleths
- 203: Modern Australian Usage (featuring Nicholas Hudson)
- 202: Lying
- 201: The First Language
- 200: Offensive Things
- 199: Computer Humour
- 198: The Geography of Sound (featuring Caleb Everett)
- 197: The Birthplace of Indo-European (featuring Luisa Miceli)
- 196: Irish
- 195: Palindromes
- 194: Auslan Advocacy (featuring Drisana Levitzke-Gray)
- 193: The Bilingual Advantage
- 192: Linguistic Movies
- 191: Ape Accents
- 190: Rap Linguistics (featuring Darin Flynn)
- 189: Words of the Year 2014
- Big news for Talk the Talk!
- 188: The Language Myth (featuring Vyvyan Evans)
- 187: Emoji
- 186: No Puns in China
- 185: Listener Questions
- 184: We Do Language (featuring Anne Charity Hudley)
- 183: The End of Cursive
- 182: Machine Translation
- 181: Is Aussie Slang Dying out?
- 180: Bad English (featuring Ammon Shea)
- 179: Onomatopoeia
- 178: Village Sign Languages
- 177: Speed Reading
- 176: Language Myths (featuring Karen Stollznow)
- 175: Mother Tongues
- 174: Big Data, Small World
- 173: Metaphor in Brainspace (featuring Thalia Wheatley and Beth Castieau)
- Radiothon 2014 Special
- 172: Why It’s Hard to Learn a Language
- 171: Word Crimes 2
- 170: Word Crimes 1
- 169: Kalyakoorl (featuring Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse)
- Midyear hiatus, 2014
- 168: In Praise of Ambiguity
- 167: The Language Hoax (featuring John McWhorter)
- 166: Mondegreens
- 165: Little Sponges
- 164: Sounding Gay
- 163: EvoLang (featuring Mark Ellison)
- 162: Conlangs 2
- 161: Conlangs 1
- 160: Evidence for Innateness?
- 159: Taboo Grammar (featuring James Bednall and Joe Blythe)
- 158: English Plurals
- 157: Digital Extinction
- 156: Emotional Language
- 155: The Language of Denialism (featuring Kylie Sturgess)
- 154: Pointing
- 153: Acting Human
- 152: Listening to Plants (featuring Monica Gagliano)
- 151: Search Censorship
- 150: The Voynich Manuscript
- 149: Tongue Twisters
- 148: The Language of Smell
- 147: Words of the Year 2013 (featuring Ben Zimmer)
- 146: Gender ID
- 145: Esperanto
- 144: Huh? (featuring Simon Tam)
- 143: Racial Terms
- 142: Yeah No
- 141: Australianisms (featuring Ben Yagoda)
- 140: Grammar Grouches in the News
- 139: Genderless Pronouns
- 138: Proto-Indo-European
- 137: Shakespeare’s Words
- 136: Punctuation Day
- 135: Language Detective (featuring Sali Tagliamonte)
- 134: Glossolalia
- 133: Hobson-Jobson
- 132: Language Protectionism
- 131: Dolphin Names
- 130: Foreign Accent Syndrome (featuring Karen Croot)
- 129: Light Warlpiri
- 128: Your Brain on Language
- 127: English Is Weird
- 126: Detecting Suicide
- 125: Computers Can Do That? (featuring Arjun Mukherjee)
- 124: Sound Reasoning
- 123: The Longest Word
- 122: Spelling Bee
- 121: GIF
- 120: Homophobia Out of Sport
- 119: Ultraconservative Words (featuring Luisa Miceli)
- 118: Navajo
- 117: Rise of the Robo-Markers
- 116: Downton Anachrony
- 115: John Gumperz
- 114: Word Aversion
- 113: Laughter and Tears
- 112: Duolingo
- 111: All the Words in the World (featuring Robert Munro)
- 110: Brahmin Chant
- 109: Birds and Bees
- 108: Language in Utero
- 107: Linguistic Time Machine
- 106: Scrabble Points
- 105: Language and the Pirahã, Part 2 (featuring Daniel Everett)
- 104: Language and the Pirahã, Part 1 (featuring Daniel Everett)
- 103: Fetch the Dax
- 102: Non-English Wikipedias
- 101: Words of the Year 2012
- 100: Mayan
- 99: ‘Cos and Because (featuring Kate Burridge)
- 98: Homophobia
- 97: Monkey Gone to Heaven
- 96: The Copiale Cipher
- 95: Whales and Elephants
- 94: Language in the Asian Century
- 93: The R-Word
- 92: Ease v. Clarity
- 91: Political Gestures
- 90: New Signs for New Times
- 89: Banned Books
- 88: Our Land, Our Languages
- 87: Blasphemy!
- 86: Apple’s Genius Guide
- 85: Singing Mice
- 84: Language and Bias
- 83: Language from Charades (featuring Nicolas Fay)
- 82: Fast Learners
- 81: Tween Texting Terror
- 80: Semantic Illusions
- 79: Kinship Terms (featuring Charles Kemp)
- 78: Henge
- 77: Robot Baby
- 76: Bogan
- 75: Gorilla Baby-Talk
- 74: Search Insights
- 73: Lost in Translation
- 72: What Not to Say
- 71: Really Old Art
- 70: Persabian Gulf
- 69: Words with Baboons
- 68: Passive Voice Day
- 67: Dying Words (featuring Nick Evans)
- 66: Logos
- 65: Fire
- 64: Life Without Numbers (featuring Caleb Everett)
- 63: Uptalk
- 62: Carillon Shemozzle
- 61: Sign to Text
- 60: Speech-Jamming Gun
- 59: France Bans Mademoiselle
- 58: Goat Accents
- 57: The Middle Finger
- 56: Reading Thoughts
- 55: Siri and Speech Recognition, Part 2
- 54: Siri and Speech Recognition, Part 1
- 53: Words of the Year 2011
- 52: Carols
- 51: Songs in Invented Tongues
- 50: SlutWalk (featuring Beth Castieau)
- 49: Linguistic Savings
- 48: Yucca Mountain Warning
- 47: Spoke Differently They?
- 46: Speech Accent Archive (featuring Steven Weinberger)
- 45: Languages of the Commonwealth
- 44: Spam Spotting
- 43: Um
- 42: Learning from Twitter
- 41: You Are What You Speak (featuring Lane Greene)
- 40: Silent Letters
- 39: Colours in Himba
- 38: Austalk (featuring Celeste Rodriguez Louro)
- 37: Gadafi or Khaddhaffy?
- 36: Go the Fuck to Sleep
- 35: Americanisms
- 34: Neanderthals
- 33: Weird Words (featuring Rod L. Evans)
- 32: Birdsong Syntax
- 31: Who Wrote the Bible?
- 30: Swedish Pronouns and Gender
- 29: Time in Amondawa (featuring Chris Sinha)
- 28: Spying for Metaphor
- 27: Swearing in Victoria
- 26: Language Volunteering (featuring Robyn Knight)
- 25: The Most Human Human (featuring Brian Christian)
- 24: Planking
- 23: Bilingualism in Schools
- 22: Super-brain (featuring John Hoffecker)
- 21: King James Version
- 20: It Began in Africa
- 19: Language Change, Literally
- 18: App
- 17: OMG, Oxford! WTF?
- 16: Letters and Hyphens
- 15: Baby Talk
- 14: Bilingualism and Alzheimer’s
- 13: The King’s Speech
- 12: OK (featuring Allan Metcalf)
- 11: Shit Happens
- 10: Google and Bing
- 9: Chaser the Border Collie
- 8: Money for Nothing
- 7: Watson
- 6: Huck Finn and the N-Word
- 5: Words of the Year 2010
- 4: Language Evolution (featuring W. Tecumseh Fitch)
- 3: Pavlova
- 2: Accent
- 1: Bots
Archives
Awards
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- CBAA Awards 2018: Best Radio Program — Talk
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- Talkley Award 2018
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