Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog...

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic and ~spooky~ about possession! We talk about how the haunting type of possession and the linguistic type of possession do share an etymological origin, but how the term "possession" itself is misleading, because possessive constructions are used to express all sorts of relationships between nouns, including part-whole (eye of newt), material (a cauldron of silver), interpersonal (the wizard's apprentice), and general association (the school of magic). We also talk about the three big ways possession is expressed in English (of, 's, and have) and how languages can require some concepts to be possessed (like kinship terms and body parts) or consider others too significant or too trivial for possession (like the moon or a pen). 

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: episodes.fm/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMTkzNjk2NzMzOQ
Read the transcript here: lingthusiasm.com/post/764631688689172480/transcript-episode-97-ooooooh-our-possession

Announcements:
The 2024 Lingthusiasm Listener Survey is here! bit.ly/lingthusiasmsurvey24

It's a mix of questions about who you are as our listener, as well as some fun linguistics experiments for you to participate in. If you have taken the survey in previous years, there are new questions, so you can participate again this year. There's also a spot for asking us your linguistics advice questions, since our first linguistics advice bonus episode was so popular! You can listen that one here: patreon.com/posts/92128507

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about how linguists might go about communicating with aliens! Drawing on highlights of the academic book "Xenolinguistics: Towards a Science of Extraterrestrial Language", we talk about how we'd actually go about trying to communicate with aliens.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes, including the episodes where we discuss the results of our past two surveys: patreon.com/lingthusiasm

For links to things mentioned in this episode: lingthusiasm.com/post/764631220667695104/ooooooh-our-possession-episode-oooooooohh

97: OooOooh~~ our possession episode oOooOOoohh 👻

Can you tell your real individual from your robot agent? In the ultimate game of Bot or Not, would you stake $26m of your own money on it? en clair is a podcast about forensic linguistics, literary detection, and language mysteries from past to present. You can find data, audio credits, further reading, and a transcript of the podcast at the blog: wp.me/paoUKh-tt

S02E10 - Bot or Not

S02E10 - Bot or Not (voice only)

When a human learns a new word, we're learning to attach that word to a set of concepts in the real world. When a computer "learns" a new word, it is creating some associations between that word and other words it has seen before, which can sometimes give it the appearance of understanding, but it doesn't have that real-world grounding, which can sometimes lead to spectacular failures: hilariously implausible from a human perspective, just as plausible from the computer's. 

In this episode, your host Lauren Gawne gets enthusiastic about how computers process language with Dr. Emily M. Bender, who is a linguistics professor at the University of Washington, USA, and cohost of the podcast Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000. We talk about Emily's work trying to formulate a list of rules that a computer can use to generate grammatical sentences in a language, the differences between that and training a computer to generate sentences using the statistical likelihood of what comes next based on all the other sentences, and the further differences between both those things and how humans map language onto the real world.  We also talk about paying attention to communities not just data, the labour practices behind large language models, and how Emily's persistent questions led to the creation of the Bender Rule (always state the language you're working on, even if it's English).

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: episodes.fm/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMTk2NDIxOTY5OQ

 Read the transcript here: lingthusiasm.com/post/767803835730231296/transcript-episode-98

Announcements:
The 2024 Lingthusiasm Listener Survey is here! It’s a mix of questions about who you are as our listener, as well as some fun linguistics experiments for you to participate in. If you have taken the survey in previous years, there are new questions, so you can participate again this year. Take the survey here: bit.ly/lingthusiasmsurvey24

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about three places where we can learn things about linguistics!! We talk about two linguistically interesting museums that Gretchen recently visited: the Estonian National Museum, as well as Mundolingua, a general linguistics museum in Paris. We also talk about Lauren's dream linguistics travel destination: Martha's Vineyard. 

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds. Sign up here: patreon.com/posts/115117867

Also, Patreon now has gift memberships! If you'd like to get a gift subscription to Lingthusiasm bonus episodes for someone you know, or if you want to suggest them as a gift for yourself, here's how to gift a membership: patreon.com/lingthusiasm/gift

For links to things mentioned in this episode: lingthusiasm.com/post/767803572750581760/lingthusiasm-episode-98-helping-computers-decode

98: Helping computers decode sentences - Interview with Emily M. Bender

Voices from World Day of Remembrance for Traffic Victims in Los Angeles. 
1:48

Transportation under Trump according to Yonah Freemark, principal research associate in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute.
8:25

Los Angeles Bike Fest with BikeLA Director Eli Kaufman. 
13:37

Strong Towns Northampton checks its tone over a bike lane closure. With Danielle McKhan, Jennifer Nery, and Alex Bowman.  
19:10

Fighting for bikes means fighting back against the Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s attempt to rip out Toronto’s bike infrastructure- with Norm Di Pasquale, New Democratic Party Candidate for Spadina - Fort York in Toronto, Canada.
34:04

Studying the language of mobility with linguistics Professor Maria Caimotto. 
40:41

Stacey’s Bike Thought 
53:46

Bike Talk - Us Versus Them

In 2012 when I was in grad school, I took a sound design course. For the final assignment, I made an audio composition from a poem. I changed some of the lyrics to the poem In Love, His Grammar Grew by Stephen Dunn, had my boyfriend at the time, Ian Blood, record himself reading my lyrics, added foley sounds and textures, and edited them in ProTools.

Michelle Calabro - Ian Blood - In Love His Grammar Grew

A história dos dígrafos

En este episodio converso con la profesora Claudia Holguín Mendoza, an associate professor of Hispanic Studies and specializes in Spanish linguistics, y el profesor Jorge Leal, an assistant professor of history and specializes in cultural and urban history. Holguín y Leal están en la universidad de California en Riverside.

Latin@ Stories Episodio 267  Teaching in Spanglish

If it wouldn't be too much trouble, if you have a spare half hour, could we possibly suggest that you might enjoy listening to this episode on politeness? Or, if you'd prefer a less polite version, "Listen! Now!" 

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about what politeness and rudeness are made up of at a linguistic level. We talk about existing cultural notions of "saving face" and "losing face", aka the push and pull between our desire for help vs our desire for independence, and how they've been formalized in a classic linguistics paper. We also talk about being less polite to show intimacy, addressing God in English and French, which forms of politeness are and aren't overtly taught, different uses of "please" in UK vs US English, levels of indirectness, email etiquette across generations and subcultures, rudeness and pointing, nodding norms in Japanese and English, smiling at strangers in the US vs Europe, and how a small number of politeness ingredients can combine in so many different ways that are culturally different.  

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: episodes.fm/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMTk5MDMyNTM3MQ
Read the transcript here: lingthusiasm.com/post/770341829256364032/transcript-episode-99

Announcements:
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about science metaphors and learning everything with Tom Lum and Caroline Roper, cohosts of Let's Learn Everything! We talk about whether programming languages should count as a language credit, numbers and ritual stock phrases like seventeen and "once upon a time", as well as etymology and metaphor in ecology, chemistry, and linguistics. We also talk about turning the "constantly trying to figure things out" part of your brain off, attending the word of the year vote, and how linguists have a tendency to be curious about language all the time, which... sometimes gets us into trouble.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes, plus access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds. Find it all right here: patreon.com/lingthusiasm

Looking for a last minute gift for the language nerd in your life? Or are you trying to get someone in your life to love linguistics as much as you do? Patreon have newly added a gift memberships feature! So if you'd be excited to receive a patreon membership to Lingthusiasm, forward this link to your friends and/or family with a little wink wink nudge nudge patreon.com/lingthusiasm/gift

For links to things mentioned in this episode: lingthusiasm.com/post/770341545981444096/lingthusiasm-episode-99-a-politeness-episode-if

99: A politeness episode, if you please

A 29-minute audio doc adventure into why we way say it and what it says about us.

Oh my God: The Audio Doc

A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. "A fascinating listen that will change the way you see everyday communications." –New York Times. "Joyously nerdy" –Buzzfeed.  

Weird and deep half-hour conversations about language on the third Thursday of the month.

Listened to all the episodes here and wish there were more? Want to talk with other people who are enthusiastic about linguistics? Get bonus episodes and access to our Discord community at www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm 
Shownotes and transcripts: www.lingthusiasm.com

Latin@ Stories is a podcast born out of the oral history project about Latin@s in Ohio, Oral Narratives of Latin@s in Ohio (ONLO). It seeks to amplify the Latin@ experience with interviews in Spanish, English and Spanglish

We are a bike advocacy and culture podcast based in Los Angeles, Ca.

en clair is a podcast about forensic linguistics, literary detection, language mysteries, cryptography, codes, language and the law, linguistic crime, undeciphered languages, and more, from past to present. Credits, links, podcast transcripts and more in the Case Notes: wp.lancs.ac.uk/enclair

New tracks tagged #Linguistics