verbing and being

We'd really really appreciate anything at all, itd go straight to feeding us.

Paypal: @huronk499

cashapp: $translesboo

Films have behind-the-scenes commentary tracks, Lingthusiasm now has a behind-the-scenes research article (a DOI rather than a DVD).

This new Open Access article in Language and Linguistics Compass is an introduction to a variety of evidence-based practice from linguistics, education, and psychology we have drawn upon and further developed in the first seven years of creating Lingthusiasm. We introduce you to a lot of the ways we think about framing, jargon, metaphor and putting feeling into our favourite linguistics topics. We argue that this is not just the basis of our work on the podcast, but a way of formalising the contribution that lingcomm (linguistics communication) can make to the larger field of scicomm (science communication). We also share some results from our 2022 listener survey that illustrate how our audience is receptive to the work we're doing.

We hope that it provides a bit of an insight into how we do what we do, but also inspires other linguists to communication their research - whether that's in a 3 minute thesis competition, a blog post for your institution, or "trying out [lingcomm] explanations during relevant, natural occasions in local communities" (i.e., chatting with friends and family, which is where we come up with some of our best episode ideas!).

Abstract

Communicating linguistics to broader audiences (lingcomm) can be achieved most effectively by drawing on insights from across the fields of linguistics, science communication (scicomm), pedagogy and psychology. In this article we provide an overview of work that examines lingcomm as a specific practice. We also give an overview of the Lingthusiasm podcast, and discuss four major ways that we incorporate effective communications methodologies from a range of literature in the production of episodes. First, we discuss how we frame topics and take a particular stance towards linguistic attitudes, second, we discuss how we introduce linguistic terminology and manage audience cognitive load, third, we discuss the role of metaphor in effective communication of abstract concepts, and fourth, we discuss the affective tools of humour and awe in connecting audiences with linguistic concepts. We also discuss a 2022 survey of Lingthusiasm listeners, which highlights how the audience responds to our design choices. In providing this summary, we also advocate for lingcomm as a theoretically-driven area of linguistic expertise, and a particularly effective forum for the application of linguistics.

Citation

Gawne, L., & McCulloch, G. (2023). ‘Communicating about linguistics using lingcomm-driven evidence: Lingthusiasm podcast as a case study’, Language and Linguistics Compass, 17/5: e12499. DOI: 10.1111/lnc3.12499 [OA publication]

See also:

The Lingthusiasm website

廿

It meant 20, which you can remember because it's made up of two tens (十) and looks similar to two (二). It can be read nijū, jū, or nyū. It's also an alternate way to write 二十歳 (hatachi), meaning 20 years old.

卅 (30)

呉音　ソウ SŌ ← ソフ SOFU

漢音　ソウ SŌ ← サフ SAFU

訓　みそ miso, さんじゅう sanjū ← さむじふ samzifu

卌 (40)

音　シュウ SHŪ ← シフ SIFU

訓　よそ yoso, しじゅう shijū ← しじふ sizifu, よんじゅう yonjū ← よんじふ yonzifu

These aren’t probably used in names at all, I wager.

皕 (200)

呉音　ヒキ HIKI ← FIKI

漢音　ヒョク HYOKU ← FYOKU

Because 廿，卅 and 卌 (while archaic/not as commonly used in Japanese today) is still actively used in colloquial Cantonese.

皕 remains quite uncommon, and there's an even more obscure character: *𤾩!

*There have been suggestions 𤾩 is a relatively recent made-up character originating from Hong Kong.

The fact that I can only find this character input on the Cangjie keyboard (Chinese input keyboard common in Hong Kong) and not other Chinese keyboards like Pinyin or Zhuyin, lends some credibility to this suggestion.

I also haven't been able to find any definition to this character. Though logic would suggest it obviously means ‘300’.

廿 (*jaa6)

卅 (saa1 or, saa1-aa6)

卌 (se3 or, se3-aa6)

皕 (bik1)

𤾩 (bik1)

*In Cantonese Jyutping (the equivalent of Mandarin Pinyin or Japanese Romaji), the ‘J’ is silent or, more like a ‘Y’, much like the ‘J’ sound in German or Spanish.

Also fun to note, that when typing 卅 and 卌 on the Cangjie keyboard, it's entered like this:

卅 = 廿 + 十 (i.e. 20+10)

卌 = 廿 + 廿 (i.e. 20+20)

The only other info on it I was able to dig up is that, according to Glyph Wiki, it also has a variant form (異體字):

This looks like something one would use in handwriting.

Cangjie decomposition rules matching with arithmetics for 卅 & 卌 is quite neat!

Also, looking at the Cantonese readings of 廿, 卅, 卌, & 皕, I cannot help but notice that, much like Sino-Japanese on’yomi, Cantonese retains the syllable-final implosive /k̚/ from Middle Chinese but lost the /p̚/:

廿 OC /*njɯb/ → MC /ȵiɪp̚/ → 🇭🇰 jaa⁶ / 🇯🇵 ニフ NIPU → NIFU → ニュウ NYŪ, ジフ ZIPU → ZIFU → ジュウ JŪ;

卅 OC /*suːb/, /*soːb/ → MC /s?p̚/** → 🇭🇰 saa¹ / 🇯🇵 ソフ SOPU → SOFU → ソウ SŌ, サフ SAPU → SAFU → ソウ SŌ;

卌 OC /*sub/ → MC /siɪp̚/ → 🇭🇰 se³ / 🇯🇵 シフ SIPU → SIFU → シュウ SHŪ;

皕 OC /*prɯɡ/ → MC /pɨk̚/ → 🇭🇰 bik¹ / 🇯🇵 ヒキ PIKI → FIKI → HIKI.

** Couldn’t find the exact Middle Chinese pronounciation of that one.

I have heard it said that Sino-Japanese on’yomi bears a closer resemblance to Cantonese phonology than, say, Mandarin.

I've heard this one a lot too. I didn't look too deeply into it, and given my rather average understanding of Cantonese and rudimentary knowledge of Japanese, I don't think I'm qualified to speak too much on this.

That being said, I do find myself thinking how similar Cantonese sounds to the on'yomi of more than a few Japanese characters, much more often than I find with Mandarin.

And I'm inclined to think a few other Chinese dialects are more similar phonetically to on'yomi Japanese too, way more than Mandarin ever is.

If you want to know a lot about what a fish does in its day-to-day life, take a look at its tail!

Fishes with forked (D) or lunate (E) caudal fins are typically fast swimming pelagic fish. These particular shapes allow for minimum resistance against the surrounding water and allow these fishes to move quickly to capture prey or avoid predators.

Fishes with round (A) truncate (B) and emarginae © tails are typically able to move at high speeds in very short bursts, but are much slower than those with forked or lunate tails.

burning brite

In the forests of the nite

But when Nael (of 6 years age)

Says I am out

i’m at the transfem picnic

One time Mr. Robinson closed the door to the classroom furtively and asked a student near the door to keep an eye on the door’s window in case anyone from the administration was coming.

He explained the next curriculum was one he had been explicitly disallowed from, but he didn’t know how we were going to cover the next portion of our history work fairly without covering it first. He said if any of us were offended by it or felt it threatened our beliefs to be discussing it, please talk to him and he would gladly find alternative work for us to do instead. But he asked if we would be okay not broadcasting too loudly to the administration (our parents were fine) about it.

At this point we’re on the edge of our seat. Forbidden curriculum? YES PLEASE.

“All right, do I have a promise from you you won’t tell on me to the principal?”

We, of course, promised.

“Good. Then let’s talk about World Religions.”

-

(A side note here, if you ever have a not-forbidden courseload you want your students to really enthusiastically consume, I think pretending it’d forbidden will up interest levels immensely. The work was informative and we loved it, but the Secret Agent-ness of doing a SECRET ASSIGNMENTS and having SECRET PROJECTS and LOOKOUTS FOR THE FUZZ upped our investment in the material beyond description. Even if you DON’T have secret coursework, PLEASE DO THIS WITH YOUR CLASS SOMETIME. IT’S FUN.)

-

At the start of the Great Gender Debate when someone would try to say boys and girls aren’t different and they can do whatever the other does, he’d super respectively ask them if they really thought that, or if they were saying it because they thought that’s what they were supposed to say, and encouraged us being honest about how we actually felt about the difference between between boys and girls and who was better.

Then lots of super fun shouting and throwing paper at each other and making desk barricades and more yelling.

(Keep in mind, this was 1999/2000. A lot of people didn’t even have internet at home. This was a small conservative town. Being trans or nonbinary wouldn’t have even been an option we knew about.)

Then he eventually stepped back into the fray of the Great Gender Debate and made us break down our points, which he had been taking notes of, on the white board and then had us carefully and intentionally refute or discuss them one at a time. Until we had reached a real and honest consensus that actually we’d been tricked into thinking gender was anything at all. Now when we said we thought neither was better than the other and being a boy or girl didn’t mean anything about what you could or couldn’t do, we fucking meant it.

One of our male classmates started wearing nail polish the next week and we told him it looked rad.

-

One time it was a nice day out and even though we weren’t doing trig at that point he was like, “Wanna learn something cool? I’m gonna show you how to calculate how tall something is using shadows” and then we went outside and learned how to find out how tall things are by measuring their shadows and measuring the shadows of stuff we knew the length of, and then for fun we also independently worked out the world was round and how big it was.

-

One of the times the cops were called on us it was because we were having a Hot Air Balloon making contest and people thought there were UFOs or spy planes.

-

Another time we were just setting off dry ice bombs, lol.

-

They changed the milk at lunch and we hated it and Mr. Robinson may have given us ideas about civil disobedience and direct action that led to the lunch room sit-in the schoolchildren ended up staging until they would switch the milk back. At the time it felt like he was being really cool, and he was, but thinking on it he may have also been using us as props to prank the administration and also give himself an afternoon off while all the administration tried to get a hundred 11-12 year olds to leave the damn cafeteria while we chanted about milk.

-

We grew up in a town that was about 2% black. It was not uncommon for people living there to not know any black people at all.

One day Mr. Robinson told us we were going to be having a very important speaker come talk to us, and that he expected us to treat her with respect and deference. That she was one of the most important people we could be learning from, and we were honored to have her come to us. We all sat up, wondering who this important woman could be.

And he opened the door and it was one of the ladies who worked the front office, accepting our tardy slips and making us wait for the school nurse. A black woman, one of the only black people you’d find in the school.

She then sat down with us and talked to us about the racial history of our town. Explained to us what a Sundown Town was. Explained to us the racism she experienced growing up there. Explained the mistreatment of the police.

She wasn’t even that old. It struck us all. But you’re not even old. Is this still happening? Why didn’t you leave? Did anyone help you?

It was an incredibly powerful day.

When I went home to talk to my parents about it, they had no idea about any of it, even though this was the same town they had grown up in.

-

Mr. Robinson would occasionally repeat this habit of special guests were not academics, just people who had lived in our town for a while, bringing in a lunch lady or a janitor, making us talk to them, learn our town’s history, learn to respect their jobs, learn manners and deference for the working class.

-

One time he gave us bread, water, and ziploc bags and set us loose on the school to rub the bread on stuff, drip water on it, seal it, and watch what mold grew. The kid that got the grimiest piece of bread with the most enthusiastic mold would win.

We learned that many of the surfaces we consider the most dirty get the most regular cleaning, and so are in fact the least likely to produce mold. While many of the surfaces we eat off of and touch regularly are nasty as hell.

-

Similar to the Great Gender Debate, one time he let class go wildly off course while we debated hotly for over an hour about The Lion King. I do not, for the life of me, remember the substance of this debate. I think The Little Mermaid may also have been a point of conversation? I just remember it got HEATED, and Mr. Robinson always thought these heated debates were REALLY ENTERTAINING and would quietly sit back and egg them on.

-

One time he gave me detention and I cried through the whole thing thinking my parents were gonna kill me when I got home and instead when I got home my mom hugged me and told me how he’d called her and said I’d been really honest and showed moral fiber in standing up for a friend and taking the detention in the first place and she was really proud of me for being a good person or whatever and idk if he actually was impressed with my actions or if he saw that I was stressed about my parent’s reactions and wanted to mitigate that, but that was such a good move.

-

IDK. I just have a hard time thinking of any teacher I ever had both as capable of chaotic dry amusement and completely upright righteous anger. He modeled for us what it was like to evaluate things based on merit rather than based on rules and expectations, and you felt that energy constantly.

-

Image 1:

I was at the movies tonight and a very interesting thing happened to me... I was in the bathroom before the movie and an older woman approached me. She asked how long I'd been using a cane, I told her almost 10 years. She paused and then said, “...was it hard?” (1/5)

Image 2:

...and I realized this woman was going through exactly what I went through 8 years ago. So I looked her in the eye and said “yeah. it was so hard. I face planted in a Walmart parking lot before I finally broke down and did it. But it was so worth it.” (2/5)

Image 3:

This woman is 75 and was absolutely terrified of starting to use a cane. So she looked at me, a young person, out and about with my cane, and had her realization. She told me she has severe vertigo, and that sometimes she can't stand up and it's terrifying... (3/5)

Image 4:

...but it's even more terrifying to admit that you need help. so we talked about that fear. we stood in the bathroom at the AMC and we talked about what it feels like to take a leap into vulnerability and the unknown. and I just want to remind anyone who needs to hear it (4/5)

Image 5:

it's okay to be afraid. it's natural not to want to admit to that vulnerability. but it's so worth it!! the freedom youn gain from using mobility aids is so worth it, whether you're 20 or 75. take the leap. (5/5)

But an underlooked proponent on why some people are nearing homeless and crowdfunding heavily rn is bc society has failed you by making it as inconvenient as possible to learn about social systems and programs that already exist to help your situation as well as not having enough programs and aid.

Lemme give some examples. I have been unemployed for 10 months. My mom told me about a paying job training program a month ago after I already decided to mive in with her to find work, because nothing was coming up in my own city. My best friend didn’t know about affordable housing assistance in my state until she talked to my dad about it on a chance encounter. Some people on here have to see posts about much cheaper alternatives to their current prescriptions or medical plans because its not in the interest of their doctors paychecks to tell them about it. I would have waited to get vaccinated and not have crowdfunded for Uber money if I had known they were going to give free vaccine rides the next month. But I wouldn’t have really known this until I opened the app once that program started, because it is in their interest to keep taking my money until its their desired time for me to reap their “generous” services.

/ 小龙包 hatching early,

before his siblings