92 episodes
Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language. Daniel Midgley, Ben Ainslie, and Hedvig Skirgård
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4.7 • 101 Ratings
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A podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
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97: The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions (with Eli Burnstein)
What's the difference between a KINK and a FETISH? Does it matter if you ASSUME or PRESUME? English is full of these close groups of words, and author Eli Burnstein has untangled many of them in his delightful book The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions. Eli joins us for this episode.
Timestamps
Intros: 0:42
News: 9:54
Related or Not: 24:11
Interview with Eli Burnstein: 37:33
Words of the Week: 1:10:13
The Reads: 1:33:45 -
96: Language City (with Ross Perlin)
New York City is home to a lot of languages! Sometimes a sizeable language community can live on just a couple of floors of an apartment building. Dr Ross Perlin is working to find and promote minority languages in NYC. He's the co-founder of the Endangered Language Alliance, and author of Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York. Ross joins us for this episode.
Intro: 0:36
News: 8:13
Related or Not: 32:52
Interview with Ross Perlin: 43:12
Words of the Week: 1:24:13
The Reads: 1:39:54
Show notes: http://becauselanguage.com/96-language-city/
Support the show: http://patreon.com/join/becauselangpod/ -
95: Why the Far-Right Demagogues Language (with Caitlin Green and Maureen Kosse)
Language authorities. Right-wing politicians. White supremacists and feminists. What do they have in common? They're all working together to fight gender-inclusive language. But why bring language into this fight? What extra does this give them?
Dr Caitlin Green and Maureen Kosse join us to explain on this big episode. -
93: Stop! Grammar Time (live with Ellen Jovin and friends)
In honour of Grammar Day (4 March), we are joined live by special guest Ellen Jovin, who regularly dispenses grammar advice and wisdom from the Grammar Table. Now she's testing our grammatical mettle and answering our questions.
YouTube video of this episode:
https://youtu.be/C1l8Alk3Ptc?si=7pnGnuKcy9YY-mhR -
92: In the First 600 Milliseconds (with Rachel Nordlinger)
What are your eyes doing when you describe a scene? It may depend on your language.
New research from Dr Rachel Nordlinger and team shows that we do a lot of planning and scanning very quickly, and it follows the requirements of our language. She's studied Murrinhpatha, an Australian Aboriginal language, to see what its speakers do. -
90: Enpoopification (with Grant Barrett and Tim Brookes)
We’re talking words, and no one has a way with words like Grant Barrett. He’s here to tell us what it’s like at Dictionary.com, and what went down at the annual American Dialect Society Words of the Year 2023 vote. And perhaps he can help forestall Hedvig’s planned mass human extinction.
Also: World Endangered Writing Day is upon us! It’s a fantastic initiative, and author Tim Brookes of Endangered Alphabets is here to lay out the case for preserving writing systems.
Customer Reviews
Likable
It's good!
Shed your pet peeves!
If you are weary of cringing at the inevitability of ever-evolving language, and if you want to cast off that over-worked nerve, this Podcast is for you. Daniel, Hedvig and Ben are delightful, amusing and erudite while they keep us up on the latest slang, the history of usage, and a host of scientific and social studies and issues around language usage. Daniel even provides a 3-step approach to accepting and embracing change in language, and I’m on step 2 for my own aversions (“different THAN-should be FROM and CONVERSATE…I’m working on it!). Every episode educates and entertains optimally. Keep up the great work!
Undeniably Excellent; Undeniably Infuriating
I listen/have listened to seemingly all the linguistics podcasts and BL is top-tier. It features a truly wide variety of topics, a pleasing blend of the irreverent and the intellectual, and fascinating guests. That said, you will have to learn to live with one of the more frustrating trios of hosts out there: one is dependably excellent and obviously thinks about the audience, one is incredibly bright but often equally, painfully smug, and the last's sometimes affected brashness does little to conceal the brittle girders of his fragile ego.
But, truly, the excellence is more than worth learning to live with the bad, and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in language. linguistics, and words, just as I do to everyone else whose ear I can bend.