#example sentences

Lingthusiasm Episode 82: Frogs, pears, and more staples from linguistics example sentences

Linguists are often interested in comparing several languages or dialects. To make this easier, it’s useful to have data that’s relatively similar across varieties, so that the differences really pop out. But what exactly needs to be similar or different varies depending on what we’re investigating. For example, to compare varieties of English, we might have everyone read the same passage that contains all of the sounds of English, whereas to compare the way people gesture when telling a story, we might have them all watch the same silent film and re-tell it back.  

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about linguistics examples that have been re-used in lots of studies to get large groups of people to produce comparable language data. These sentences are supposed to be pretty unremarkable so we can focus on doing linguistics on them, but they end up having a sort of charmingly banal vibe that makes them much beloved by people who have spent tons of time poring over recorded files. We talk about The North Wind and the Sun, the Stella passage, the Rainbow passage, the Harvard Sentences, the Frog story, the Pear story, and the Tweety Bird video. We also talk about what goes into creating different genres of reusable example sentences, from phonetic balancing to what makes a concept culturally specific, as well as our experience learning about and coming up with various examples. 

Have a favourite recurring example that we didn’t have space for here? Let us know! 

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here. Announcements: 

In this month’s bonus episode we present: LingthusiASMR, a very special bonus episode, in which your hosts Gretchen and Lauren get enthusiastic about linguistics in a very relaxed manner by reading one very large classic set of charmingly banal linguistics example sentences. Several people have told us that this has helped put them to sleep, which isn’t usually our goal but it sure is for this episode! 

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 70+ other bonus episodes, including our upcoming linguistics advice episode where we answer your questions! You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds. Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

Wikipedia entry for ‘The North Wind and the Sun’

Illustrations of the International Phonetic Association (IPA)

International Phonetics Association - Journal of the IPA

The Speech Accent Archive - Please Call Stella

The Speech Accent Archive - Submissions

The Rainbow Passage

Gender Reveal Podcast episode discussing gender and voice

The Harvard Sentences

Superlinguo post on The Harvard Sentences

Wikipedia entry on ‘The Frog Story’

Frog Story corpora

‘Visual narrative comprehension: Universal or not?’ by Neil Cohn

The Pear Story video 

Pear Film World Corpus

‘The Pear Stories: Cognitive, Cultural and Linguistic Aspects of Narrative Production’ By Wallace L. Chafe

‘A Pear Story Study of information status, thematic role and animacy in Meithei (Manipuri, Meiteiron)’ by Shobhana L. Chelliah

‘The Chinese Pear Stories - Narrative Across Seven Chinese Dialects’ by Mary S. Erbaugh

Looney Tunes ‘Canary Row’ video

‘Language Unlimited: The Science Behind Our Most Creative Power’ by David Adger (with David’s cat and husband as the example sentence names)

‘Don't Touch My Projectile: Gender Bias and Stereotyping in Syntactic Examples’ by Monica Macaulay and Colleen Brice

‘Gender bias in linguistics textbooks: Has anything changed since Macaulay & Brice 1997?’ by Cépeda, Kotek, Pabst, & Syrett

‘The Diverse Names Generator: An app for decreasing bias and promoting inclusion’ by Maura O’Leary, Rainey Williams, Mario Peng Lee

Diverse Names Generator

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

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Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

What IS in a 名前? Learn with us!

-📚ー

📌𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐉𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐰//𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐙𝐁𝐎™ 【お名前は何ですか。】 ʀᴇᴀᴅ&ʟɪꜱᴛᴇɴ ʜᴇʀᴇ:

‐📝ー

(๑・ω・)[๑･▿･๑](・ω・๑) Don’t just memorise phrases, understand the vocabulary and grammar!

Learn ❹ ways to ask a someone’s name

🗣️ＱＵＩＺＢＯ™くん will sound out every word

Vocabulary is an important aspect of language learning, and it can be fun to explore new and unusual words. In this blog post, we'll take a look at 12 interesting and uncommon vocabulary words, along with example sentences to help you understand how they can be used.

Tonitruous: (adjective) characterized by a loud or thundering sound Example sentence: "I was trying to sneak out of the house early in the morning, but my tonitruous sneezing gave me away and woke up the entire neighborhood."

Funambulist: (noun) a tightrope walker Example sentence: "I've always dreamed of running away and joining the circus, but the only job they had available was for a funambulist, and I'm terrified of heights."

Minimus: (noun) the smallest or least significant member of a group Example sentence: "I was trying to impress the judges in the hot dog eating contest, but I'm such a minimus that I could barely finish one frankfurter, let alone the whole plate."

Lickspittle: (noun) a person who behaves obsequiously in order to gain favor or advantage Example sentence: "I was going to ask my boss for a raise, but I chickened out at the last minute and turned into a lickspittle, showering him with compliments instead."

Leptodactylous: (adjective) having slender fingers or toes Example sentence: "I was trying to fix the broken shelf, but my leptodactylous fingers kept dropping the screws and making everything worse."

Acroamatic: (adjective) intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest Example sentence: "I tried to join the secret society, but I was rejected because I couldn't understand their acroamatic handshakes and code words."

Lingua: (noun) a language, especially one used for communication between people of different nations or regions Example sentence: "As a lingua franca, English is spoken by millions of people as a second language."

Odontalgia: (noun) toothache Example sentence: "I was trying to enjoy the amusement park, but the odontalgia from my cavities ruined everything, especially the cotton candy and funnel cakes."

Luculent: (adjective) shining or glowing Example sentence: "I was trying to sneak into the movie theater without paying, but the lucent glow of my phone gave me away and the security guard kicked me out."

Transpicuous: (adjective) easily seen through or understood Example sentence: "I was trying to hide my love for romantic comedies from my friends, but my transpicuous ogling at the posters and trailers gave me away."

Viator: (noun) a traveler, especially one on a journey Example sentence: "I was trying to be a savvy viator and save money on my vacation by booking a cheap hostel, but I ended up sharing a room with snoring wrestlers and a parrot that wouldn't stop squawking."

The Sentences Computers Can't Understand, But Humans Can 

나: 대부분 월 말에 정신 없이 바빠요. 

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가: 자정까지 밤을 새웠어?