50 - Employing Linguistics

912 turns

• linkHedvig Skirgård - I also love how Daniel rhymes ACADEMIA with MACADAMIA.
• linkDaniel MidgleyBen Ainslie - CHUCKLES
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Didn’t he?
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's all macademic.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh.I see what you did there.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, you said acad, acad…You said…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Acad- /ei/ -mia.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, acad- /i/ -mia, acad- /ei/ -mia.Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Macadamia.
• linkBen Ainslie - By the way, Hedvig, this is how we know that Daniel is a member of the landed gentry.He just casually, like, has a packet of macadamia nuts within reach.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - He's Australian and he's in his pantry.That's normal.
• linkBen Ainslie - Second most expensive nut.
• linkDaniel Midgley - What's the first?RUSTLING PACKET
• linkBen Ainslie - Pine nuts.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Because they're so small.
• linkDaniel Midgley - What about those nuts that have been passed through the body of a civet?
• linkBen Ainslie - I don't think that really counts, because I think they're coffee beans.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.I was going to say:they're not nuts, are they?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Beans are nuts, right?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - What about nutmeg?
• linkBen Ainslie - No, no, no, no.No.Guys, we're talking about nuts that people eat, like, by the fistful.Not like other ridiculous…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah — coffee beans!😵‍💫LAUGHS IN CAFFEINE
• linkBen Ainslie - No, no.This is not the sandwich-hotdog thing, all right?We all know what I mean when I say nuts.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm…
• linkDaniel Midgley - BRIEF PAUSE
• linkBen Ainslie - The sorts of things that woodland creatures, like, nibble on in a cute fashion, okay?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Peanuts.Peanuts are beans.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I think if you say "snack nuts", then everyone knows what you mean.
• linkBen Ainslie - I don't feel like that is a clarification that is required!!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Sounds like a high school insult.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I love how…We are nowhere near our run sheet items.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hey, Snack Nuts, get over here!
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes.LAUGHSIn my high school, it would have been Smack Nuts.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hoooooooo…!
• linkBen Ainslie - That is a 100% true statement.
• linkBen Ainslie - BECAUSE LANGUAGE THEME
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hello, and welcome to Because Language, a show about linguistics, the science of language.My name is Daniel Midgley.Let's meet the team.In this corner, the gracious and pugnacious Hedvig Skirgård.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Thank you!We're on Zoom.So, I have no idea where you're pointing, but I am in a corner.
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, it's funny, because on my screen, he pointed at me.So, I was like:tee hee hee heee!I was doing like a whole smile, and now I just look like an idiot.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - LAUGHSI have googled, like:"when will Zoom have the same order of participants for everyone all the time"".And it's been a feature request for several years.
• linkBen Ainslie - I wonder if that's one of those things— Hey, look, we're derailed already and we haven't got to the second introduction. That’s so Ben! —LAUGHTERI wonder if it's one of those things.You know how every now and then, there's a knotty problem in computer science, where an intuitively very, very simple thing— like, let's just have all the tiles be the same for everyone —when you actually look into what that would take coding-wise, it just makes server rooms catch on fire…
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's NP hard.LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - …from the premonition of the amount of work it would require.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It's insane.
• linkBen Ainslie - I wonder if it's one of those issues.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Maybe.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, I'm not looking at either one of you, because I've used my run sheet to cover the Zoom screen.So, I can't actually tell where I'm pointing.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah, fair enough.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And in that corner…
• linkBen Ainslie - Nope.
• linkDaniel Midgley - He's a lover, not a fighter.He's Ben Ainslie.
• linkBen Ainslie - Look, if my life experience has taught me anything, it is that I am very bad at both of those things.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, no!
• linkDaniel Midgley - CHUCKLESUh-oh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I refuse to believe that.
• linkBen Ainslie - I meant that more in an emotional attunement sense rather than a sexual sense.And now, it just sounds like I'm desperately trying to defend my own sexual prowess.So, I'm just losing, just all around at this point.It's all bad.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I think you're great at fighting love, as a concept.
• linkBen Ainslie - There we go.
• linkDaniel Midgley - There we go.
• linkBen Ainslie - The one thing I'm good at fighting is the other thing.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Put the two together.You got love in my fighting.You got fighting in my love.Hey, they're both terrific!Hi to you two.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Hello, Daniel.How are you?
• linkBen Ainslie - Good day, sir.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Feeling good.It's good to see you.I missed you both.Hey, for this episode, we've got a lot of stuff.We've got news.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We're having Words of the Week entirely curated by Hedvig, which is really special.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, and I thought of more since!I saw which ones you put in the run sheet.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - So, Ben recently convinced me to try TikTok and since then, I'veCHUCKLESlearned a lot more new words!
• linkDaniel Midgley - CHUCKLESWow.
• linkBen Ainslie - I stand by it.If you are active in your curation of the algorithm, TikTok can be a source of a lot of good, positive, yay-time feels.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.No, I think that's true.Anyway, so, I am your Millennial correspondent in the world of Gen Z.
• linkBen Ainslie - There we go.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.
• linkBen Ainslie - I like it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And also, I'll be having a chat with Dr Anna Marie Trester, founder of Career Linguist and she's the author of a new book, Employing Linguistics.If you're wondering what to do about linguistics as a job, but academia is…you're not in it, or you're on the way out of it, or something like that, you need to be listening to this episode, you need to be reading this book.It is a super good chat.
• linkBen Ainslie - I like that.Get your notepads out, kiddos.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.Those things are all coming up.We've got all the things you need.
• linkDaniel Midgley - You know, our latest bonus episode just passed was with Mignon Fogarty, Grammar Girl.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Mm-hmm.
• linkBen Ainslie - Like the coffee beans that go through…it passed.just like coffee beans pass through the body of the civet.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm, it did.But why, do you mean like…because she helped us through our mailbag.Are you saying that you don't remember anything that we did?
• linkBen Ainslie - No, I'm saying that because the coffee beans that pass through the esophageal tract of the civet become far more valuable once they come out the other side, just as she made our product far more valuable by her contributions.It was a thing, I did it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - My god.
• linkDaniel Midgley - CHUCKLES
• linkBen Ainslie - Turned poop beans into a compliment.That's a skill.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm really kind of disturbed by the parallelism.
• linkBen Ainslie - But not by the peristalsis, which is the effect that…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, it's fine.
• linkBen Ainslie - …that the esophageal tractSINGINGhas on things that go through it.Sorry.
• linkDaniel Midgley - If you'd like to hear that episode, and it's really good, then become a patron at the Listener level.That's patreon.com/becauselangpod.Jump on it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Mm!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - SILENCE
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm just being quiet now so that we can start the show…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Me too.
• linkBen Ainslie - …because I've been really badCHUCKLESup until this point.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Me too.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Fine.All right, then, let's start the news.This one comes from ladidalisa, who says, "There has been some reporting in the German news media on a new study on child language acquisition in 13 countries, during the first covid lockdown." Now, let me ask a question.If you haven't read the run sheet yet, if you're new to this area, if you're improvving it…
• linkBen Ainslie - SNORT
• linkDaniel Midgley - …what effects do you think lockdowns, and maybe even masking, would have on child language acquisition?
• linkBen Ainslie - Ooh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Some?Tons?None?
• linkBen Ainslie - Some, but not tons.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - The people I know who have had small children during covid, one of the things they've said is that they spend more times with their kid than they maybe otherwise would, and the kids spend less time with peers.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Right?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - So, I'm thinking that has an effect.
• linkBen Ainslie - This was sort of going to be my guess…would be that, much like pets that have been acquired during covid as Hedvig has probably seen in the TikTok trends, the kids get access to quite a bit more direct adult language interaction.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm not convinced that the mask thing will make thaaat much difference, because when you're housebound, the masks aren't really a thing.Being out and about with masks doesn't seem it would be enough of the time to really mess with kids in that way.So, yeah, I think maybe kids…well, two and a half and below year olds, is that what we're talking about here?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Turns out that in the experiment that we're going to talk about, it's anywhere from a year and some, to about seven.So, there's a wide range.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, right.That's like my kid, and one of yours as well.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes, indeed.So, we're thinking not so much.There's no need to really be unduly concerned.
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, not concerned.I would imagine they're probably a bit more Chatty Cathys than they would have been, because there's just been so much more verbal interaction turn taking, modeling, that sort of thing.Let's find out if Ben's wrong!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Well, this work comes from Natalia Kartushina from the University of Oslo and a team.This was published in Language Development Research.The article is called 'COVID-19 first lockdown as a window into language acquisition:Associations between caregiver-child activities and vocabulary gains.' So we are talking about vocabulary acquisition here.It took place in 13 countries, 12 languages, mostly major languages.There was English and German, there was also Hebrew and Arabic.But it seems that one thing that we already know isn't that great, and did seem to have an impact here, was that kids who had lots and lots of passive screen exposure…
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - As with lockdowns or without, they didn't acquire vocabulary quite as much.Makes sense?
• linkBen Ainslie - Totally.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.So the idea there is that there's less peer interaction and maybe a bit more adult interaction, but not enough to make up for it.So, the parents plunk them down in front of a screen, because they can't go to kindy.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And you know, what really does seem to do very well is reading books together.This isn't "screens are bad, books are better"", but it's just joint attention.We've already seen in an earlier study that when kids are watching screens with a parent, they don't have interaction about the material they're talking about.They talk about like, "Stop pressing that button.Oh, no, it's an ad." They talk about the medium, not the message.
• linkBen Ainslie - It's really annoying.I hate it.You're watching a movie.Ellis is there.Then, he just starts talking about something random.And it's like, "Bro, there's a movie on!Come on"
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkDaniel Midgley - Are you attending?
• linkBen Ainslie - This is Turning Red.This is really good.I don't think you understand the significance of what's happening here, but you will, you will!
• linkDaniel Midgley - So screentime, not great.Shared book reading, really great.The other thing is that children gained more words than one might have expected, once again, because there was lots of adult interaction, lots of caregiver interaction.And caregivers are usually more in tune with the vocabulary that the child already knows.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Hmm, yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Makes sense.
• linkDaniel Midgley - So, if anything, quite a bit better.Now, masking.There's a Washington Post story from Jamie Friedlander Serrano and here are some of the main points.There was a 2020 study and a 2012 study that showed that kids didn't have any trouble deciphering emotions, even when somebody was wearing a mask.That's one thing.And a 2021 study showed that tone of voice was more important than facial expression.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, because as someone talked about on TikTok, masks cover your mouth, not your eyes.
• linkBen Ainslie - And that's the thing that humans are really, really drawn to.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Well, so, this person made an argument that a different, different cultures and that like East Asian cultures in general pay more attention to the eyes than Western cultures do, and that this is…Anyway, I don't know if that's true.I don't know, but it is certainly true that if you pay attention to eyes, you can still decipher a lot of emotion from someone.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Like, I try here in Germany to, like, smile at people when I walk into shops and things, and I hope that my eyes do that.
• linkBen Ainslie - I was talking about this just earlier today.You know that really bland smile that you have to make at colleagues that you see throughout the day who've already said hello to you and asked how their weekend was or whatever.But now that you're all wearing masks, you've got to do, like, you've got to squint your eye.CHUCKLESYou've basically got to twinkle your eyes so you make sure they know you're just being like, "Heyo," kind of thing.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, exactly.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Here's the other thing.They did a study in 2021 with two-year-olds and some of the adults had transparent masks, the plastic ones— blech —and some had the opaque masks, and children were better at communicating with adults, who had the opaque masks.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Maybe because the opaque mask ones put more effort into their eyes and the plastic ones fogged up anyway or something.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ah, good point.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I don’t know.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Our pal from the Vocal Fries Dra Megan Figueroa has been relentless in fighting the good fight in her research, explaining all of this stuff — that masking is not a problem for language development.Blind children have no access to facial expression at all, but they still learn spoken language just fine.You should follow her on all the socials.
• linkBen Ainslie - That's a really good…Just like:Yeah…or this, guys!LAUGHSAnd you're like:Oh, yeah!Fine.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - GIGGLES
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, yeah!Of course.Totally.Yeah, not a big deal.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But it also reminds us that children need joint attention actions.If you're worried about your child's language acquisition, then joint attention, even watching YouTube with your child is probably better.I know some parents who play videogames with their children, but they give their children a control that isn't attached to anything.
• linkBen Ainslie - Plugged in?
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkBen Ainslie - What I believe in the gaming circles is known as the "little brother" or "little sister maneuver".
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Pretty sure Ben did that to me once.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And then, they're like, "Oh, look, I won." It's like, "Yeah, good job."
• linkBen Ainslie - You sure did.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That's lovely!
• linkBen Ainslie - Ellis is just JUST getting to the level now, where playing with him isn't a heinous infuriating experience, and it's one of the happiest times in our entire relationship.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHSOh, that's so good.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That's really nice.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The thing that my little three-year-old daughter loves to do…she said, "Can we watch the Feed?" The Feed is basically a few Reddit channels, like the animal ones, and the cute ones, and the funny ones.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - They're silent GIFs usually.So, I say, "Hey, what do you think that mama leopard is going to do when the baby Leonard…CHUCKLESLeonard!When Baby Leonard sneaks up on her!"
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's positive and it's, you know, screen time, but we're both looking at a thing we're talking about that thing and it works really well.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, it's really nice.
• linkDaniel Midgley - So I guess, what I get out of all this is that language learning is really robust and we use a lot more to get information than just mouths.So, it holds together somehow.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Cool.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right, Hedvig, I'm interested in your thing about this one.This one is a story from Nicola Davis in the Guardian.It's about work from Dr Adriano Lameira from the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.This one's about orangutans.What do we know about orangutans?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - First of all, the word means forest people, which is pretty cool.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes, that is.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Orang-orang is people, and orang is person, and orangutan is forest person, which I love because they're quite close to us.Not close as chimpanzees, but, yeah.And you asked me…So, orangutans, aren't they known for being a bit kind of aggressive?
• linkDaniel Midgley - They're not very social.They don't hang out in social groups very much.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - So usually, animals in general that aren't very social— and that probably goes with primates as well —aren't usually as good at communication and collaboration.So, you're telling me that they've done what?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, the story is…this is the Guardian headline, get ready."Orangutans use slang to…
• linkBen Ainslie - Ugh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHSThat's a good reaction.
• linkBen Ainslie - Sorry.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hold that thought."…to 'show off their coolness'— end quote —study suggests."
• linkBen Ainslie - GROANSFrom The Guardian?Really?
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - Come on, guys.You're supposed to be above this.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's silly season at The Guardian.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Wait, I'm going to be the…what's the opposite of the devil's advocate?I'm going to be the angel's attorney.
• linkBen Ainslie - The devil's persecutor?LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - Angel's advocate.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Angel's attorney.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.Okay.There you go.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I like that.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Eh?Eh eh eh eh eh?Very good?I'm going to be as charitable as I can.Okay, so, "show off".They're showing something off, which usually has to do with mating and being an attractive mate for the opposite gender.So…and if you can show that you have some sort of cool innovation, or new dance, or an unique song, or cool new feathers, especially birds, I've learned recently that not only have colored feathers, but they will also color their feathers.Do you know about this?
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, I did not know about this.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - There's a bird that produces a kind of wax out of his butt, and it puts it on the feathers, and it makes the tips a different color, and it's like the ladies love it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Butt wax!
• linkBen Ainslie - It's literally the frosted tip.It's like the early 2000s 'N Sync bird equivalent.I love it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Wow.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I have a new friend, who's really into birds, so I'm learning a lot about birds.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - He knows a lot about bird communication.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And Steve is all about bees.So, you're covered.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, and they actually get on very well.So they talk about birds and bees.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHSAh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - LASER NOISESTiu tiu tiu tiu tiu!Anyway, where was I?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Butt wax.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Butt wax.So if they're trying to show off for the opposite gender, is it that they're not…?Slang sounds…it's probably not slang.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm.Correct.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - What is slang, really?Is slang is usually something we say that, when there is a synonym that is used by people in non-formal contexts, who aren't socioeconomically considered privileged, then we call that slang, essentially.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, we do.
• linkBen Ainslie - As opposed to, like, a variety, which is what we would call it if we were being fancy pants linguists, right?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, or we would call it like, "Oh, that's a posh synonym," or that's a fancy way of saying…
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - …PROCURING is a fancy way of saying buy, but you can also say PROCURING is slang for BUY, if you want.
• linkBen Ainslie - Right.
• linkDaniel Midgley - If it's professional, then it's jargon.If it's disesteemed, then it's slang.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.I like that.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.Let's just say that they found innovative language use that orangutans might be using to attract to mates.Is that what they found?
• linkDaniel Midgley - That is the story.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - "Researchers studying the kiss squeak alarm…" So, I guess, muahKISS SOUNDalarm calls.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, yeah.I know that sound.
• linkDaniel Midgley - "…of wild communities of the apes in Borneo and Sumatra have found that rather than such sounds being innate and hardwired as was long thought, orangutans are able to come up with new versions of the calls varying in pitch and duration." And I suppose that is what they are calling slang.But I think we've missed the lede here.I think everybody's going off on the slang angle.I think there's something more interesting happening.Check this out, Hedvig, and see if this doesn't remind you of anything we've talked about.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The author says, "The way I see it is, low densities of orangutans have a slang repertoire that they constantly revisit and use.They are conservative, but once a new call variant is used, everyone hears it and the variant is quickly incorporated, enriching the slang." Okay, but going on."In high density communities of orangutans, communication is more like a cacophony.It seems novelty is at a premium, much like in songbirds, and that individuals want to show off their coolness and how much of a rebel they are," he said.Does that ping anything for you?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Or would just stand out?What does orangutans know about coolness, right?They just want to stand out.
• linkDaniel Midgley - They're pretty cool.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, but…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, being different.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I just mean that they don't have a social…LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - No.I'm right there with Hedvig.I'm reading this being like, "Oh, my god, could we anthropomorphise any harder?"
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - Like, you just got the big anthropomorphise cannon out and was just like:BLASTING NOISES.Like, it's just human characterizations everywhere.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, it is a popular article.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I feel like orangutans and animals are cool enough in themselves.We don't need to…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah!
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHSOh, God.You don't need to be primate positive.It's okay.LAUGHSWe get it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm just saying it obscures what's happening if we talk about them as doing something cool.They're doing something to stand out.
• linkBen Ainslie - I agree.Totally.Let's give it the linguistic slang it deserves, right?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Right.
• linkBen Ainslie - Because they're not using slang, they're not trying to be cool or anything like that.Right?We have linguistic— or linguistically adjacent —terminology that we might want to use here.What would it be?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Just standing out sounds fine.You said that, in a high density, they do this more.There's more noises around.So, you need more to stand out.This is a warning though.That's weird.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Uh-huh.It's a certain kind of call, yeah.What strikes me is that the communication they use looks different for communities of different sizes, just like with humans.Haven't we mentioned that if you have a small community, language looks a certain way, but if you've got a huge community, language is going to look a different way?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yep, that's a thing that a lot of people are studying including Dr Limor Raviv, who has been on the show and other people we've had on the show before.People are still arguing about, like, what it is that's going on, because you can also say that if you have few people, then learning each person's idiosyncrasies is easier, because there's fewer people's idiosyncrasies to learn, so you can sustain more weird stuff.But then…
• linkBen Ainslie - What's the number called?Like our primary number of human animals that we can genuinely relate to?It's like 200?It's the something number?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Dunbar's number.
• linkBen Ainslie - There we go.Dunbar's number.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, so…I don't know.Yeah, no, it's true.Social network density and structure seem to be a thing, not only in human species.It's interesting, because I didn't know that orangutans varied so much in their social structure.I thought they were similarly structured most of the time, but that's cool that they're not, because that is a cool test case.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, that's what I thought.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.No, that's really cool.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It seems the opposite of what happens in humans, because for humans, if you've got a small group, you can remember everyone's quirks.So it just is really quirky.But if you have a lot of people that you have to communicate and you don't know them, you've got to standardise a little bit.But it seems the reverse happens with orangutans.In large communities, it just goes wild and innovation just…
• linkBen Ainslie - I guess orangutans are trying to do a very different thing to human beings and that's probably what's driving that differentiation.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, that's it.
• linkBen Ainslie - As Daniel said, orangutans are primarily a fairly solitary creature.So, they don't need to cooperate, they don't need to collaborate, generally.They need to hook up and, like, get it on.But beyond that, it's like, "All right, that was fun.See you later."
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, cool article and interesting work.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, it's very cool.Thank you for bringing that to us.
• linkBen Ainslie - Do we have another news article?
• linkDaniel Midgley - There's someone I'd like you all to meet.I got to meet her on Twitter a while ago.She's a listener of the show, she's a participant on our Discord server, and it's great to have her input.Her name is Ellen, and she is blind.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, hey, Ellen.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We got together one day, and I asked her, "You are blind.What does that mean to you?"
• linkDaniel Midgley - INTERVIEW AUDIO
• linkELLEN - I had sight in one eye until I was, like, six.We discovered when I was about 20 or so that it was a genetic thing.So I do remember colors, but now I'm totally blind, can't see anything.The main reason Daniel asked me to come on the show was to talk about how annoyingly inaccessible Twitter can be, sometimes.LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHSYeah.And not just Twitter, but the whole internet really.
• linkELLEN - Yeah, to some extent.Even fun places like Discord!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Even fun places like Discord.We are trying to do better with ableist language, like not using blind or deaf, when what we mean is unaware or unable to understand.Stuff like that.
• linkELLEN - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - But we've also become aware that the online experience could be a lot better for Blind people and there might be some things that sighted people could do.
• linkELLEN - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Before we get to that though, I'd like to understand a bit more about your computer setup.How does a Blind person navigate a screen full of text?
• linkELLEN - Sure.So a lot of Blind people use what's called a screen reader, and the iPhone has one built in.I think Android devices do too.I have not had any experience with those.But the iPhone has a built in one called VoiceOver, and there's also a few different screen readers that you can use on a computer.I use a couple different ones.They sound very much the same.They use the same voice, but they work pretty much the same way.One is called JAWS.It's pretty expensive, so some people can't afford it because blind tech is really expensive.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's like a tax on being blind, you know?
• linkELLEN - Exactly.Assistive tech of any kind is basically a tax on being disabled, and it sucks.LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, dang.
• linkELLEN - Yeah.So there's another screen reader that actually I think was developed initially in Australia and I can't remember if it was Perth or not, but it's called NVDA.Both of these are…JAWS stands for Job Access With Speech.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - ELLEN:NVDA is Non-Visual Desktop Access, I believe.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And do I just…?If I were looking over your shoulder, but I see you pointing at stuff, and then, it would read what you're hovering over or…What happens?
• linkELLEN - Yeah.I mostly use keyboard commands.I don't have a mouse.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkELLEN - My computer has a touchpad that someone can use if they're helping me with something.Another thing is my braille display, which I have a couple of these.Again, usually pretty pricey.They did recently come out with a more affordable one that's less than $1,000.So, that gives you an idea.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, okay.And if I'm trying to read Twitter, like…When I pull up Twitter, I just pull it up and it has tweet after tweet after tweet and I can read them one by one.What's it like for you?
• linkELLEN - The Twitter webpage is kind of busy and not a lot of fun to read, but I have a Twitter client on the computer that is specifically designed to work with screen readers.So, I can just read through a list and there's two parts of the window you can tab between.Either the list of…I think it's a tree view of something that says home, and there's your home timeline, and then you have mentions, and you get all your notifications and stuff in there, and stuff like that.It's just tab over to whatever you want.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And it will read it out to you?
• linkELLEN - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, cool.Now, you and I had a chat a little while ago about what’s…
• linkELLEN - Yeah, a few weeks ago.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Few weeks ago.What sighted people could do to make things better for Blind people?So, I'm ready for your big list.What do we need to stop doing immediately, and what can we start doing?
• linkELLEN - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I know what your number one is already.
• linkELLEN - Yeah.LAUGHSI kind of listed it as that.One thing as far as what people can stop doing is decorating their Twitter names, for lack of a better term.I've seen a lot of people put multiple emoji.And by that, I mean 10 different ones in a row.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.All right.
• linkELLEN - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And I've also noticed that there's scripty Unicode kind of letters.
• linkELLEN - Oh, my goodness.Stop using those!LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - Aren't you fun?
• linkELLEN - Oh, yeah.Those sound all bonkers when you read them with a screen reader.
• linkDaniel Midgley - What do they sound like?What does it read to you when you get one of those?
• linkELLEN - I don't know if there's a way for me to record how the screen reader would read it, unless you sent it to me in Discord, probably.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, okay.What I'm going to do is I'm going to type "Hello" in a fancy text generator.
• linkELLEN - I always wonder like, "How do people even get these damn fonts, really?"
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.You can blame LingoJam, because it's got a translator.All right, in our own personal chat, I am typing "Hello," but it's that wonderful scripty font that you can find in Unicode.
• linkELLEN - Okay.It says script small h, italic small e, script small l, script small i, italic small o.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And it's having to read all this to you.
• linkELLEN - It doesn't read it as a word.It says each letter individually.LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, and so, you have to sit there and listen to all this detailed description.
• linkELLEN - Detailed description of these letters that might be helpful for someone, but I don't know who!LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.What about emoji?I know that we've got angry face, or…Does it just read to you what the names of the emoji are?
• linkELLEN - Yeah.A lot of…and I love emoji!I love decorating, I love punctuating my sentences with them.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Handy!No problem there.
• linkELLEN - Yeah, not in the same way you would use regular punctuation obviously, but the kind of like…I love when people make a comment on something and then, like, put sparkles or some kind of reaction face next to it.But I've seen…
• linkDaniel Midgley - …Ukrainian flag, Ukrainian flag, Ukrainian flag.
• linkELLEN - Well, usually, it's only one Ukrainian flag next to people's names.So, it's not too bad.But that is a funny thing, because it depends on the screen reader.I've found that between the two different screen readers I have on my computer, JAWS, I guess, isn't all up to date with the newest Unicode.So, some of the newer Unicode things, it just reads as question marks.So it's like, right now, Hedvig has a Ukrainian flag after her name.So, it just says, "Hedvig?"
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, right.Question mark?LAUGHS
• linkELLEN - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, that's wild.Hedvig is confused.
• linkELLEN - Yeah.It does show up as what in braille is called a full cell, so it's all six dots at once…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, okay.
• linkELLEN - …on the braille display, but that's not very descriptive.
• linkDaniel Midgley - No.
• linkELLEN - When I'm using a braille display with my phone, which I can do, it will show a full description of the emoji, which is a lot to scroll through if you want to get to a message.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, okay.I notice also you haven't been hanging out in the Games section of our Discord, because it sounds like this:Green square, yellow square, black square, black square, black square, green square, green square.
• linkELLEN - Exactly.Yep.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Wordle is its own special hell for blind people.
• linkELLEN - Yeah, there is an adapted version.Well, someone wrote a Chrome script, and I think some others for different browsers to make it at least accessible to play in the original version.And I have seen a Portuguese version that's accessible.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.So, we've got so far excessive use of emojis— although some is okay —putting clever characters in your screen name or even in a tweet, I suppose, or otherwhere.
• linkELLEN - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, but now, it's time to get to the big one.
• linkELLEN - GIGGLESYes.Something that more sighted people need to know about is that there is basically the screen reader equivalent of invisible ink that you can…There's a special secret box and you have to activate it on Twitter.And there has been a campaign for Twitter to make it mandatory, but of course, Twitter's going to be Twitter.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.
• linkELLEN - So you can activate this little box and it'll show, I think, in one corner, it'll say, "Alt".And you click on that, and you type in there a description of your picture.And it doesn't need to be a real fancy description, either.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Like, just a sentence, I guess, like:"a tree with a blue sky" or something.
• linkELLEN - Yeah.Some descriptions are really good, and you do have, like, a thousand characters worth of space.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mhm.Okay, that's a lot.
• linkELLEN - If you want to get that detailed.There's one person I follow on Twitter.She studies medieval manuscripts, and she likes to post pictures of, like, these interesting images from the manuscripts, and she gets into really fascinating detail, and I'm just blown away by how, like:How can you put that much detail into a 4-inch space?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.But you don't have to.You can just say, "Here's a little description of what my image is about."
• linkELLEN - Yeah, like:a cat sitting on a cat tree or…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.Because otherwise, it's just invisible to you.
• linkELLEN - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - So alt text is a thing that we can find out about.Twitter does it.I don't see that Discord has a very good way of doing it.So, a lot of these…
• linkELLEN - Yeah, they just implemented it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh!
• linkELLEN - There was an update that had something about alt text, though I've never seen it implemented yet.It was, like, just a couple of months ago that they started doing this.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, I see.I do…I see an article in November."Discord introduces alt text through latest software update." So, I guess there are things that we can do to make it so that more people can enjoy the stuff that we're posting and that's a good thing.
• linkELLEN - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ellen, thanks so much for coming on and telling me about your online experience and thanks for being part of our experience too.
• linkELLEN - Sure.Thanks.
• linkELLEN - END OF INTERVIEW AUDIO
• linkDaniel Midgley - And that was Ellen, listener to the show and friend of the pod.
• linkBen Ainslie - So there's one thing there that I already knew about, and there's one thing I'm really surprised to find out about.I knew about alt text stuff, because there's a very well-known newsreader on the radio here in Australia called Nas Campanella, who's Blind.She reads all of her stories on the fly by reading it with braille, which I just think is…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - What?
• linkBen Ainslie - …fucking bananas.Like, that's just crazy that she can do that.And she talks about…she's been on the radio being interviewed before, and she talks about how great it is on Instagram and Facebook, and stuff when people put alt text for their things, because actually, it allows her access to a thing that we all do, which is just like waste time online.But the thing I was really surprised about was how much some of the devices cost!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.
• linkBen Ainslie - That's crazy!I will put my hands up right now and say that I thought that that side of things had more or less been just completely taken care of by smart devices.I figured they'd just been as magical and transformative for Blind people as anyone else, andCHUCKLESclearly, I was dead wrong.So, wow, that's crazy, and we definitely need to, as a society, do something about that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Bzz!That's $2 in the crazy jar, Ben.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, sorry.That's unacceptable and we need to do something about it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Thank you.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - They're so expensive.I didn't understand if Ellen meant that, does an insurance cover some of that or is that just like, "Oh, you want to be able to read things, you say?That's an extra experience in life."
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, that's not baked into the default, like, 1.0 version.You'll need to buy some DLC for that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, big time.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I get the feeling you'd have to have a pretty good policy to be able to cover assistive tech, but I do not know what it's like for everyone.You know, plain text gets the job done and I'm glad that we have it.But I'm also glad that we have a lot of the stuff that we have added like emoji and reactji, and photos.They make our experience richer and we need them.We don't want to get rid of those things.But, boy, it's a dimension of online experience that a lot of disabled people just don't have and that makes me really sad!
• linkBen Ainslie - That's another excellent use of TikTok, by the way.I know I sound like someone who's employed by this company, and I promise I'm not.
• linkDaniel Midgley - TikTok evangelist.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - But you can get access to some really interesting individuals with disabilities who are educating and doing advocacy, and that sort of stuff.Really, the basic premise is, like, the world could just work fine for disabled people if we just made it so.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Cared a little.
• linkBen Ainslie - That's really what it comes down to.We, as a society, could just choose *tomorrow* to just make the world work for people with disabilities, and we just keep choosing not to, in the same way that we keep choosing not to dismantle structural racist systems and all the rest of it.F ix climate change, pick your stupid societal thing that we're just not addressing, and insert it here.So, yeah, it's just one of those things that we just need to do, and we just need to stop doing what we're doing now, and just like:"Oh, we need to do something", and just actually do it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, it just takes a little extra time to add some alt text and if you do it, it makes it so that more people can enjoy the stuff that you're doing.On our Discord, I have issued an alt text challenge.Just whenever you post an image, add alt text.
• linkBen Ainslie - That's a good challenge.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And I was doing it on Discord, but then, I found the Discord…I mean, I got on to the assistive tech just to see the one that's native on the Mac that I'm using just to see if I do that, if I add the alt text, what's it like?I did Voiceover and it worked pretty well on Discord desktop, but it didn't work on Discord mobile.I haven't found a way to do it.So, instead of doing it in the image, I just paste it as a comment after my photo, and I know it is a bit redundant, but fuck it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I see people doing that on Twitter as well, where someone will post a picture and then someone else is like, "Hey, I'm blind.Can someone tell me what the picture is?" And either they tag specific bots or things, so hashtags, someone else will come in or people in the thread just generally be like, "Oh, yeah, they posted this meme," blah, blah, blah and explain it.Yeah, I don't know.I assume that it is better if the alt text is actually associated with the picture.Just organisation wise, when you're going through stuff, it's easier to find it.Or else you just have to look through lots of comments and if that comment is not top rated, you might lose it, blah blah, blah.So, I get that.But, yeah, I see people do that.It's quite nice.
• linkBen Ainslie - Just as a quick spruik to becoming one of our patrons, because that's what you need to be if you want to join our Discord community.One of our most vibrant and ongoing channels of Discord is the pets channel.I already know that when I add a picture of our new cat to that, my alt text is going to be like, "This is a picture of literally the greatest cat that has ever lived, and all other cats are in service to this cat.Prepare yourself to forever be on a slow, downward slope for every other cat you meet."
• linkDaniel Midgley - See, if you do the alt text, you get to decide what it says!LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - That's an objective recount of the truth.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - We can have a cute cat-off
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I have some pretty cute pictures of my cat.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm sorry, my friend.My cat has actual eyeliner, like, come on.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Catfight!It's a catfight with actual cats!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - They all have eyeliner.
• linkBen Ainslie - Mine has proper eyeliner.I'll show you.GETS, DISPLAYS CAT
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, that's very cute.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's a very cute cat.I would say that among the cats of the universe, that cat was in the top six.
• linkBen Ainslie - Right?She's a seriously, seriously attractive cat.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Anyway, folks, if you feel doing something, this is something you can do.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - MUSING…attractive…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Add alt text, avoid excessive emoji use, and just try to watch it on the funny text, will ya?Thanks.
• linkBen Ainslie - The kooky-bananay text.
• linkBen Ainslie - TRANSITIONAL MUSIC
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm talking to Dr Anna Marie Trester, founder of Career Linguist and author of the new book, Employing Linguistics:Thinking and Talking About Careers for Linguists.Anna Marie, thanks so much for coming on the show today.
• linkANNA MARIE TRESTER - Yay, I'm delighted to be here!I'm a big fan.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Aww, stop.
• linkANNA MARIE - Ah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, I'm a big fan of your book.I've had a read, and I kind of wish that I had had it starting out although, it wouldn't have made any sense.But it would have been good a few times along the way, I think.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah, I think I probably wrote the book for myself, a book that I wish…Well…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Kinda?
• linkANNA MARIE - The book…LAUGHSIt's what I'm thinking about now too.So, it is a book for myself.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, yeah.We create the things that don't exist but that we think ought to.That's what I do with the show, right?
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's like, this is a show that I would want to listen to.It would be relevant to me.
• linkANNA MARIE - Well, yeah.That's awesome.
• linkDaniel Midgley - So, Employing Linguistics, there are just a lot of feelings connected to this area.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, my gosh.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Because it brings a lot of things in about our employment, which brings in a lot of things about ourselves.
• linkANNA MARIE - And what we want to do with our lives, and our energy.For so many of us, work is one of the major ways that we're going to show up, give to the world, be who we are.It's not the only thing, but for a lot of us, it's one of the big things.If you did a PhD, you were spending that whole time being shown one model, but not really being told that you're being shown only one model, but there's all these subtle ways that you're being inculcated.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, that's it, isn't it?I mean, when I started, there were maybe a couple of career paths.There was academia.That was the big one.Some people move to industry and then you never see them again.
• linkANNA MARIE - Right.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Maybe you're one of those weird people who writes books for the pop linguistic audience, but that was it.In fact, when I taught linguistics at uni for many, many years, many times students would come to linguistics cold— it was the first class they'd ever taken in linguistics —and some of them just loved it, but then, they would ask, "What kind of job can you get?" Because of course, you've got to do that.It would have been nice to throw 'em this.
• linkANNA MARIE - I was told to run in the opposite.She literally said, "Run, run away.Run in the opposite direction.You will never get a job in this field."
• linkDaniel Midgley - You should have listened.
• linkANNA MARIE - LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - "There's only one job in this rotten field and I've got it.""
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkDaniel Midgley - You think the 70 PhDs that I supervise are going to get the same job as I've got?No way.
• linkANNA MARIE - Oh, good lord.Well, she didn't know that.I'm very stubborn, so that was all I needed to dig in my heels.I thought, "Oh, yeah?Oh, yeah?Really?"
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.All right.
• linkANNA MARIE - I didn't know it at the time.I was an undergrad and my folks were living in Texas at the time, and well, I won't say what institution, but it was just a class that I was taking.It was a one-off class just to…you know, I was working full time, and I just wanted to keep linguistics in my brain.So I tucked that away and then, years later, when I got the master's…Well, I'll tell you, I worked for an organisation that would pay for a master's degree if you could convince them that this master's degree would help you do your job better.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Nice!
• linkANNA MARIE - And I was working at an investment bank.I managed to convince them that being a linguist would help me do all the things.Like, I could better coordinate all of the communication that had to happen around compliance and credit analysis, and that making me more cross-culturally aware would be only to their benefit.I think the argument that I had to make to them to have them pay for my master's degree was the beginning of this project that is now 14 years in the making, where I'm thinking and talking about careers for linguists.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Wow.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Huh.So one thing that I've noticed in the interim, and the message that I really got from reading your book, was that there are a lot of ways to bring linguistics into other places.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And finding out what those places are, and finding out what it is that you would like to impact, to do, that's kinda the hard part.It's harder than doing the gig.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.I always found or I…Well, I did.I experienced it myself and then, in all these years as people reached out to me and ask me, "Can I get on your calendar?I want to talk to you about careers," it feels a little bit incongruous to say, "Go do some self-reflection!" People are like, "What?" Or, "Go do an informational interview." I worked to create this metaphor for this book, so that it would make sense of why those activities are cumulative and they are essential, but you need to have done a lot of them before they start making sense.So I use this constellation metaphor to say, a star doesn't make sense on its own.You need a system.And then, once you start being able to see patterns in that system, is when you start being able to kind of orient yourself, and your cosmology might shift.For a lot of us, our entire cosmology has shifted in the last two years.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, that's really true.The prospects for academia are looking worse and worse in just about every country I can think of, at least in the English-speaking world.And I think a lot of people might be sort of flailing a little bit and that involves a lot of self-blame.
• linkANNA MARIE - Oh, god, and guilt and grief!I mean, there's so much grief here!I did a panel last week and the question was, "If I leave academia, can I come back?" And I said, "Can I just speak to the grief that I hear in that question?" You know, there's a lot of loss that we're not acknowledging.It's a whole identity that we've been building in a community, in a way of talking, in a way of thinking, in way of being that is supported at every turn, when you're in.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And a vision of what things are going to be like, and what you're going to be doing.And then to just to have that gone is just super hard.
• linkANNA MARIE - And so painful.I don't want it to be so painful.It's such a loss.It's so hard to figure out what you want to do!
• linkDaniel Midgley - I guess the first thing we want to say is, "Hey, everybody.If this is you, it's real and it's okay to feel that way, and you're not alone." You mention—I'm just quoting the book here —"We need to speak to the grief, loss, and sense of isolation that this transition can engender when one moves from a highly organised space to one where there is little structure and even less support." Tell me about that.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah!So, I try to reframe always career as a research topic.When you're creating your thesis, you have to create an actionable research question.Same thing with career.It can't just be, "I need a career!" Right?Like, you need very specific actionable questions and those get developed as you do your research.So your lit review is actually more going out and talking to people and doing some self-reflection.Maybe even during those informational interviews.I hope that people will read the book, the stories.There's 40 stories in the book.I hope that people will read them as if they sort of were talking to these people as an informational interview.What do you hear in this person's story that makes you get your interest piqued?What sounds fun to you in these 40 stories?Not all of them are going to sound like something you want to do, but hopefully, one, or two, or three.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, let's talk about the stories for a second, because the book contains so many stories from linguists who have managed to navigate all of this.How did you manage to collect all these stories from such great people and such great linguists?
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.I probably collected 200!LAUGHTERIt breaks my heart that only 40 made it into the book.But maybe there's going to be another one.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Four more books!
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah,LAUGHSexactly.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mhm.
• linkANNA MARIE - I wanted to reverse engineer that sense of spark.Spark is part of the metaphorical domain that I'm playing with.I picked the 40 that I thought would spark, not just with me, but based on conversations, people reaching out to me, what seems to be sparking the imagination for a lot of linguists?So I hear a lot about user experience.There's a whole chapter about user experience research.I hear a lot of people asking me about policy analysis.So, I wanted to make sure to get…I got three in the end, people doing policy analysis.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Wow.
• linkANNA MARIE - Of course, tech, voice user interface, artificial intelligence, chat bots, all kinds.But I really worked hard to make almost everyone in the tech chapter be someone who self identifies as not a techie.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's true!I noticed that.
• linkANNA MARIE - People need to know that there's so much room, there's so much need for us.And you're not necessarily going to show up and say, "I'm a linguist," and everyone's going to know exactly what that means and say, "Come on board!" But in tech, you might have that experience.But if you don't have that experience, I guess I wanted to equip you with some models, some ideas.So in each story, I tried to construct it around something really specific that hopefully somebody could recognise, like an adjacency pair, the linguist who works with chatbots.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yep.
• linkANNA MARIE - That was something that his colleague exuberantly shouted out when I said to her, "What's it like to work with a linguist?" She said, "I learned about adjacency pairs!"
• linkDaniel Midgley - I never knew I needed this thing, but linguistics knows all about it!
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah!
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's true.
• linkANNA MARIE - It was a thing she didn't know she needed, but she needed it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm.And there are lots of things like that in linguistics.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm thinking of the conversational maxims, or the cooperation principle.
• linkANNA MARIE - These are the things that people don't know about how language does things.If you could understand that, if I could wave a magic wand, that would be…Or, as Tim Ferriss asked, "What would your billboard be?" That would be my billboard!
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's a big one.That's a big one.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Although I have to say that in tech, I've been grappling with this for 20 years, how much do they really need linguists?Because it seems in lots of fields, they just throw more engineers at it until it works.
• linkANNA MARIE - Well.Look at Joan Palmiter Bajorek.Here's a linguist, who didn't make it into my book.She needs to be in the next one.We need her in that space advocating.She created Women in Voice.She's out there advocating for…there are all these ways that our tech is actively not serving the majority of the population.It is designed for one type of person.For me, we need way more linguists to be the cog in the wheel?The things that makes the…
• linkDaniel Midgley - The sand in the cogs.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah!
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkANNA MARIE - At my book launch, I got asked a question about like, "What would you tell the linguists that are the only linguist in their organisation?" I'm like, "Be that pain that you keep being told that you are!Ask why." You know?Like, when people say, "No, no, we don't need to know that," we do need to ask these questions!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Be the pain you wish to see in the world.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.Let's talk about the BRIGHTEN metaphor here.You've got different kinds of areas, and I found that even just thinking along these lines was super helpful.Can I read these out that…
• linkANNA MARIE - Please.
• linkDaniel Midgley - …BRIGHTEN acronym?There's business, there's research, there's innovation and government, healthcare communication, technology, education, and nonprofit.So many good areas here that, at the beginning of my career, I had not really thought of — except for maybe technology.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah, I needed to have an answer.I ran a professionally oriented master's degree for a number of years, and I had lots of conversations with students and parents, and student-support systems like, "What are they going to do?" So, I had to have an answer and I wanted it to be deliberately hopeful, deliberately positive.So, BRIGHTEN was the acronym.Deliberately positive, because who needs somebody going, "~I don't know~"?
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHS
• linkANNA MARIE - And that might be how you feel, but don't take that energy to an employer like,~I really don't know what I can do to help you.~No!You show up and:Let's see.Let's figure this out.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm going to BRIGHTEN things up around here.
• linkANNA MARIE - Well, I want to acknowledge the fear.I chose to start the book with Charlotte Lindy, who's a personal hero of mine.But it was a moment of fear.She was phoned up by NASA.They wanted to know, could she help them think about why planes were crashing?That's scary.She was scared.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That doesn't sound very linguistic!
• linkANNA MARIE - Well, she found out that there were interactions happening between pilots and their copilots that had to do with deference and power, and they were using mitigated speech, which made the pilot literally not hear them.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkANNA MARIE - So, copilots were raising concerns like, "I think we're going to crash!" but in ways that were so mitigated that the speech act was not successful.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.That does sound linguistic.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah!
• linkDaniel Midgley - And necessary as well.I'm thinking the same thing, where lives are on the line, I'm thinking health care communication.We've had…for example, our friend Ayesha Marshall has talked about how nurses and doctors communicate, doctors and orderlies, how they manage to either not make it work or make it work, and the difference involves the linguistics of how we negotiate relationships.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.Well, talk about another linguist, who needs to be in the book.I was trained at Georgetown, Heidi Hamilton's work.I learned about discourse markers through her explaining to us.Consider, you've said to your doctor, so you're a high-risk pregnancy and you say, "Well, I smoked some cigarettes." And your doctor says, "Well…" Or your doctor says, "Oh!" Or your doctor says, "But…" or your doctor says, "Um."
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh.
• linkANNA MARIE - There's so much power in that moment, if doctors, everybody knew, even UM…What's the worlds that are contained in UMs?
• linkDaniel Midgley - UM is powerful.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.If you're a doctor, what you need to know is what your patient is up to, you know?And we need to be both on the same side.We need to reduce the communicative distance.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Getting your career to pay seems like a concern that is a weak point for a lot of us.I know it is for me.What have you found as far as making linguistics work out, money-wise?
• linkANNA MARIE - Well, I think we need to talk about money more.I think we somehow think that talking about money is crass, or if you want to discuss money, it's because you're obsessed.I don't think that that's helpful.We have to be aware of the ways that capitalism is implicated in all of this.I profile some people, who get paid very well.Also, people, who are trying to figure that out.I love the book, How to Be Everything.She talks about ways to construct your life if you're a multipotentialite, which I think a lot of us are.We have a lot of interests, we have a lot of directions that we could go.
• linkANNA MARIE - So some people construct a life where they have a job that pays the bills, and then pursue other projects on the side.I do the Phoenix.The Phoenix is the model that I seem to have done, which is…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ooh, the Phoenix.
• linkANNA MARIE - Every four years, I seem to reinvent myself.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, nice.
• linkANNA MARIE - I'm deeply immersed in something, really passionate about it and then, like a phoenix, I burst into flames, and then I move to something else.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkANNA MARIE - I've had jobs that paid quite well at some times in my life.I have other times where…you know, now I'm a consultant and it is very variable.So, what I'm practicing with right now is learning to ride those ups and downs.
• linkDaniel Midgley - A professor I know, John Henderson said, "Just having a lot of strings to your bow helps a lot."
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And you mentioned in the book, the idea of sparks.Can you tell me a little more about that?Because it sounds like, "Oh, there's a little sparkiness there and I'm going to follow it." Is that what we're talking about?
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.I think that's helpful for somebody, maybe somebody's in a job and they need to be in that job to pay rent, and buy food, and things.But there's maybe a way that the job could…you know, they could bring more of themselves to their work.That's where I think sparks could be helpful in maybe listening to some of these stories, or talking to other people, learning about the things that maybe might make your work life…you know, we're not going to love every second of every day on our jobs.That's just not realistic.But there is a phenomenon called job crafting and I really enjoy working with people who are trying to do that.Hopefully, they've got a director or manager that's willing to work with them and can find ways that they can bring more things that make them come alive into a job that maybe has become rote.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We've talked a bit about procrastiworking.That was one of our Words of the Week a long time ago…
• linkANNA MARIE - Love it!
• linkDaniel Midgley - …which is watching where your energy is going when you're blocking on a task.When you're blocking on what your work is, what are you pivoting to?For me, I found that— this is just a personal thing about the show —I fell into a dream job that I did not love.And I found that what I was doing when I was blocking on that I was doing the show, and I realised from that, that doing public outreach, doing linguistic communication was what I really loved.And I ended up leaving that position, and taking a leap, and doing this because I knew that I could spend 15 to 20 years just doing that, and then retire, and come out the end of it, and not do what I felt like I was supposed to do.Then, now, I'm doing what I feel like I'm supposed to do, even though there are drawbacks.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.And I want to also really celebrate that there are many different ways that people can do that.We tell a lot of the entrepreneurial stories, talk about this giant leap.Some people aren't in a position to be able to do that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yep.I'm very lucky.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah, it doesn't mean that you're not passionate.There's one linguist in the book who shares very openly that she knew she didn't…she knew she was done in her job, but she knew she wasn't going to be able to not work, you know?She spent a year, she really gave herself that time and space to explore, and she was open with her bosses too that she was…Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, in his book The Alliance, says that this is the future of work.We should all be in workplaces, where our managers would want us to let them know that we're not happy, and they should care, and they should want to help us.I don't know that we're all in those kinds of arrangements, but it'd be great if more of us were.
• linkDaniel Midgley - But that's where self-reflection comes into it.You've got to sort things out.
• linkANNA MARIE - And sometimes, a curiosity is enough.I use this term 'sparks' to mean:you don't have to have the whole answer.But if you've got a question like, "Maybe I'm interested?" I ran this master's program for six years and when I was learning how to do the job, I went over to Career Services, and they told me, "Ask your students, what's a dream job?" I was like, "I don't want to put them on the spot!What if they don't know the answer?" They said, "They'll always have an answer.There's always an answer." Even if it's not realistic or not— they might tell you 18 different reasons why it could never happen —there's an answer!So, ask that question, have your friends ask you that question."What would you do if you could do anything?There are no time constraints or money constraints.So, what would you do?" And then, let's really think about that.Is there something in there?Is there something in that spark that's trying to tell you something?
• linkDaniel Midgley - And it may feel like you're leaping into the void, but as you say in the book, "Certainty in career is impossible." And that's true for any aspect of teaching in linguistics, or doing linguistics, or anything like that.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah.Anyone who's doing something new is disoriented, because there's no…how could there be?You're doing something that's never been done before.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, I guess, that's why I like hearing the stories in the book, because here are 40 people who did it.
• linkANNA MARIE - Yeah!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Who managed it or are managing it, and maybe you can too.So, let me just finish up by asking:who needs another linguist?Does anyone really need yet another linguist?
• linkANNA MARIE - Everybody needs linguists!The world needs us.You came to linguistics because something…You didn't choose it because it was easy.It's not easy!You chose it because there's something in you that you wanted to explore through this.This gave you a tool that helped you make sense of something about the world, and the world needs that.It needs people who are creative and curious.I made a point to try to interview not just the linguists, but the people surrounding them so that you could hear that having you around is a good thing.You change the world!You change the people around you, the way that they understand problems and frame questions.And just keep on being…You've just got to keep reminding yourself though that your way of thinking and asking questions means something.It can get disorienting.You can get— especially if you're the only linguist, right? —like:"Why am I the only one that seems to think that there's an assumption here that nobody's seeing?" Yeah, well, there probably is.So, go ahead and ask it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The book is Employing linguistics:Thinking and talking about careers for linguists.It's available from Bloomsbury Books.Anna Marie Trester, thanks so much for coming on and talking to me today.I found this very encouraging, and I hope our listeners do too.
• linkANNA MARIE - Wonderful.Thank you so much.
• linkANNA MARIE - TRANSTITIONAL MUSIC
• linkDaniel Midgley - Now, it's time for Words of the Week.
• linkBen Ainslie - Brought to us this week from our elder millennial, reporting on Gen Z.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay!Welcome.I am your TikTok correspondent, your millennial in the Gen Z-Z.I have learned things.I've been exploring.I've been an explorer and discovered things, and I've learned a couple of new words.So, the first one that I've learnt is ALLISTIC.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mhm.
• linkBen Ainslie - Allistic.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I think I'm pronouncing that right.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - Allistic.I'm thinking a portmanteau to do with HOLISTIC?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh!Okay.Wrong straight out of the gate.I like my style.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The first thing I thought of was— this is going to be dumb, but okay —There's a word allopathic and it's a word that homeopaths…We all know, do we not, that homeopathy doesn't work.It's bunk.
• linkBen Ainslie - It's bunk.Yeah, it's nonsense science.Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, Samuel Hahnemann, the originator of it, invented the term ALLOPATHIC, because 'allos' those in Greek means other.So, he viewed homeopathy as the thing, and then everything else was just the other pathys, the other studies of disease.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - GASPS
• linkBen Ainslie - So, allopathic is all of the other things that do work?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, that's right.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That was the first thing I thought of.So, does it have to do with somebody, like, who habitually rejects traditional knowledge?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, but they might be cognate.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - So, ALLISTIC the way I've seen it used is someone who is not affected by autism.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, I thought we called that neurotypical.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I've heard that.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, but neurotypical is neurotypical as in not ADHD, not autistic, not blah blah blah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, okay.Gotcha.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - ALLISTIC is specifically not autistic, as far as I understand.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I am not autistic.So, I hope I'm using this word right, but this is the way I've seen it used.People say like, "Oh, isn't it…?" Somehow, I ended up on autistic TikTok and people are like, "I'm autistic, you're autistic.Isn't it funny when allistic people do this and this?" And I'm like:"I'm not, but it's nice to see you talk.Lovely." That's how I learned that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - So, it's pretty well accepted then.It seems to pop up on multiple videos.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, I've seen it many times.I wonder also if any of our listeners, who are autistic, maybe I've heard it before and have a better definition.I've seen "not affected by autism", that's a definition I've seen and I thought that was fairly clear but maybe there's a better one out there.
• linkBen Ainslie - Because it doesn't seem a lot of wiggle room there, does it?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Allistic.I like that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - What's the next word?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - The next word is a phrase and it's actually not from Twitter.It's from TikTok.And it's THE URGE TO, so like, I posted and everyone liked it, because it said "the academic urge to never get a new computer."
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, yep.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yep.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yep, yep, yep.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I love it, because I see people posting all kinds of things, but you can just say "the urge to" something and then, you don't have to form a complete sentence.Everyone's just like, "Yeah, I know."
• linkDaniel Midgley - Does it have to be THE SOMETHING URGE, like "the masculine urge to give your opinion""?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes, it has to be THE SOMETHING URGE.I see a lot of THE MASCULINE URGE to do various things.I don't know.The masculine urge to post with fish on Tinder or something like that.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, I like it.Because it's similar to the ones we've talked about before when you start a sentence with BUT or something like that where it's a topic starter.It's not a complete sentence, but no one continues the topic.Is this…?I don't know what it is.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It just is.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I believe that THE X URGE TO is, that was a word of the year from the American Dialect Society.I think they threw that one in.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Really?God, I'm behind.So, behind.They are probably…
• linkBen Ainslie - So behind.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Not that far behind.It's only April.You're okay.All right, next!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.And then, I have…oh, a very old one, but I think we should talk about it, because it is a thing, which is when you answer YES to nonpolar questions.
• linkBen Ainslie - What is a nonpolar question?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It's a question where you can't answer yes or no.So, if you say something like, "How much more gin do you want?" "Yes."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Right.Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - CHUCKLES"Yes."
• linkBen Ainslie - How much garlic is appropriate?Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes!
• linkDaniel Midgley - I have seen in the stock community.Do you think the stock will go up or down tomorrow?"Yes.""
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.Exactly.Often it's alternatives like, "Do you want blue sparkles or pink sparkles on your cake?" "Yes."
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes.LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And then, you got all of them.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I remember somebody in a Reader's Digest story talking about their unusual mother, who was asked to fill in a government form, and it asked for some reason, "Do you advocate the overthrow of the United States government by force or violence?" And she thought for a moment and said, "Force."
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkBen Ainslie - That's good, I like that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Which is kind of the opposite.It's an alternative quest…It wasn't intended to be an alternative question, but she read it that way.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.I like that.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.I liked this one as well, because I want to hear if this is a thing that people do in other languages, because I've heard people do this in Swedish.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - …which is answer YES to a nonpolar question.I'm curious to know how much it's spread and if it’s like, if it's spreading from English or if it's spreading through some other means, that'd be fun to get.So if you've noticed it in a language that's isn't English, tell me.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And then, the last one, which I have also picked up on TikTok, and I thought it meant something else than what it does, and it's the ALPHABET MAFIA.
• linkBen Ainslie - What did you think it meant?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Well, so, what do you think it means or what do you know that it means?
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, I think I know what it means.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Those friggin' Wiggles, who have a lock on the entertainment industry.
• linkBen Ainslie - laughsYeah, no, it's Sesame Street, those organised crime nutters!Sorry, did it again.Those organised crime mafiosos.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I know that there are some cities, where the street names are A, B, C, D, E, and those are sometimes called Alphabet City, that part of town.Unrelated?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes, unrelated.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's all I can think of.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Other than that, like, letters are involved.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Letters are used for a lot of things, I've got to say.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, I'm out.
• linkBen Ainslie - It's the queer community, right?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, like, LGBTQI+.The Alphabet Mafia.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.I thought it was people with certain mental diagnoses like ADHD, OCD.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh.And then, the other one you could do is, like, grammar prescriptivists as well, I guess.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, but they don't use acron…They don't use like acr…Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - No, I suppose that's true.But it's a stretch.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - So like, in Sweden, we have a political group, we call them the "letter left." We used to have, like, the Communist Party, and then, we have the Communist Party, the Marxist Leninist, and then we have the Communist…, the radicals and you added more letters, and you used abbreviation, and people called that the Letter Left.But also, in the '90s, when people were cluing on to things like ADHD and other diagnosis more, there was a derogatory term for children who were diagnosed like that to call them 'letter children'.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, right.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - So when I saw ALPHABET MAFIA, I was like, "Oh, maybe someone retaking and claiming proudness of their acronym-based diagnoses." But it's…
• linkBen Ainslie - And just to clarify for all of the other people who are not part of Gen Z and who are relying on your just absolute top-flight correspondence work…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - The Alphabet Mafia is a phrase that the queer community uses for themselves.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - As far as I understand, yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Is it?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Or, is it a sneering characterisation of people?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.
• linkBen Ainslie - No, no, no.It's not a pejorative from outside.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - It's definitely a thing that comes from within.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, cool.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I just thought it came from within another community and was used about themselves, but it's from another community, again.So, yeah, Alphabet Mafia.Cool.I liked it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Thought it was fun.
• linkBen Ainslie - I like the cool sort of like, "Yeah, that's right.We're edgy.We're dangerous.You never know.It's coming."
• linkDaniel Midgley - CHUCKLES
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I used to really struggle with coming up with Words of the Week, but I actually have, like, four more in my Keep notes.This TikTok has been…LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, well, welllll…
• linkDaniel Midgley - The dam bursts.
• linkBen Ainslie - Daniel, Hedvig, where do we see linguistic change moving the fastest in any demographic group?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Of course, of course.It's just I…the young ones.
• linkBen Ainslie - Where?Say it so the listeners know, in case.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - The young ones.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Young ones.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, not just young ones.Young…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Young women.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Zoomers.
• linkBen Ainslie - Specifically, right?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yep.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Young women are always the bleeding edge of linguistic shift, and the app that is just incredibly popular with young women is probably going to be the place where we find a lot of that stuff.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.I've got more really good ones.So, look forward to this Gen Z correspondent, your Millennial in the Z of Gens.
• linkBen Ainslie - What's going to be really interesting, here's my hot prediction.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Like, our generation, Hedders, as…I really don't know many people my age at all who are like, "Eh, I don't really do computers," they're off social media and all that kind of stuff.Like, I just don't…I really don't know people my age like that.Which means:when we're old people, we're going to have, like, apps and stuff, we're going to have communities, we're going to have little online spaces.So if you find the online space, when you and I are old, where men— specifically rural men —hang out, you're going to find the oldest fossiliest words still in usage out of anywhere, and that's going to be interesting in its own way.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's going to be good.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - It's also going to be just the worst, obviously,CHUCKLESbecause it's going to be a bunch of old dudes, but still.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I wonder as well, if we'll be as…like, cause I feel nothing but curiosity and love for Gen Z.They're sweet, they seem to be doing their thing.I don't get everything they're into.That weird Shrek filter that they're all using, like…whatever, it's fun.
• linkBen Ainslie - Just the love of Shrek broadly, like that.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Just the love of Shrek, yeah.And they accuse us of loving coffee too much or something.I don't get it.Anyway, I'm fine…
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, I always say that…when kids say that to me, I'm like:Wait.Just wait.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But I think that…like, I'm fine with being made fun of.I'm wondering if, like, 10 years from now, will I become like, "Augh, young people today!They don't understand how to use hashtags properly!" Or like…What will I bitch about young people to?I don't know.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Probably nothing.
• linkBen Ainslie - It has to happen, right?It's a rite of passage.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Nah.
• linkBen Ainslie - At some stage, there comes a point where everyone finds some old-person grump that they just don't let go of.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It doesn't have to be.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I don’t know.I'm not sure if it has to be.
• linkBen Ainslie - I found mine.I've got one.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - I've already got one.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Emojis?
• linkBen Ainslie - No, no, no.Pshaw, Daniel, pshaw.No, my thing is music.Gen Z have more or less completely let go of, like, not only just liking particular artists, but even the album as a concept.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yep.
• linkBen Ainslie - If I ask most young people what they're listening to, their genuine answer is like, "I don't know." And they mean it.They don't know the songs that they're listening to and I'm like…
• linkDaniel Midgley - A lot of people are like that.
• linkBen Ainslie - You…Music matters!!!That certainly wasn't like anyone I knew growing up at all.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I know people like that my age.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I've known people who are like, "Oh, I listen to music, but I don't really know the bands." Tons of people are like that.
• linkBen Ainslie - I refuse to believe that this is a thing that is acceptable for anyone, all right?Who you are friends with is defined by the band t-shirts that you wear and I'm never letting go of it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - What’s weird is people who listen to a lot of music, but then don't know.It's one thing, it's like some people just don’t listen to much music.
• linkBen Ainslie - No, but that's what I mean.A lot of kids have music in their ears constantly and they don't know any of the…Look, I'm painting with a broad brush.Yeah, there are some obviously really music nerdy kids, but it's not common.And a vast majority of them just listen to music all day, and they just don't really know much about…Like, obviously, there are a few key huge pop stars, but a lot of the weird little algorithmic scrolling, they're just like:iunno, it's just a thing.I'm like:No, care!Care about your music!It matters.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Well, I, as a person who listens to lo-fi beats to study and relax to when I work, I feel there are different kinds of music listening.And for example, lo-fi while I work.
• linkBen Ainslie - Sure.Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I don't know the bands.
• linkBen Ainslie - I don’t know that music.Absolutely.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And it will literally never matter.
• linkBen Ainslie - But if that was the only access that I had to music, that format of access, that would make me horrendously sad.And this is what I mean.This is my grumpy old crotchety thing and it's like, "That's bad."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - This is your grumpy, because you recognise that that's a grumpy thing.Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, that's objectively a bad thing and everyone should not be that way, basically.
• linkDaniel Midgley - So, ALLISTIC, the SOMETHING URGE TO, YES to nonpolar questions, and ALPHABET MAFIA:our Words of the Week.Hedvig, thank you for curating that list for us and we look forward to your further work in the field.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - LAUGHSYes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's have some comments.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Mm.
• linkDaniel Midgley - This one's from Nicole via email, hello@becauselanguage.com."Dear Because Language, I am new to the podcast.I love that you are doing deep linguistic dives and will likely peruse prior shows with interest.Since we're all linguists, I wanted to share my reactions to the insistence during the intro in Episode 48— to Hedvig's clear objection —of branding her relatable.This seems to echo the issue in fiction:the female characters are criticized when they are not 'likable,' whereas male characters can behave however they want to in fiction and otherwise without imposition of that kind of expectation.I scratched my head as to why the one host," that's me, "was so invested in labeling her relatable.It felt sexist.I'm in no way saying that imposing the likability framework on the female host seemed intentional.The impact, however, I thought could use interrogation.Thanks for your show and for considering this feedback." Did I do one of those things that everybody knows about, like calling women "feisty" or something?Was that a known thing, "relatable""?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I haven't thought about it.It is a little bit.I think that I specifically have for several years tried to cultivate a quite non-confrontational and non-offensive internet persona.So I think I appreciate what our listener is saying, and I think that that is probably true, like, I think that is the thing.I think maybe— and I know this also about myself when I project manage and things —I go out of my way to try and not offend people.So, maybe that makes me actually more relatable.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm.But you didn't like it when I said that.You really did push back a bit.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Um, yeah, that's true.I guess, there's just so much internet culture that people call 'relatable' that I don't like.I think that's why.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But I think like, what the word means, maybe I'm fine with.Does that make sense?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.And I'm totally up for this kind of feedback, because I don't want to put Hedvig in a box that I'm not also willing to put Ben in.And I am willing to put Ben into some boxes.Let me tell you right now.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, we've spent some good time in boxes together.
• linkDaniel Midgley - But what I wanted to say was people dig you.People have told me that they like Hedvig on the show.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It comes up a lot.People like Ben too.What's a good way to say that doesn't play into that?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I don't know if this is true, but I think that Ben is funny and I'm nice.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - See, and I don't want to put you in a nice box, because that's…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, but I would actually almost prefer nice.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, right.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Um…yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - But I think what Nicole is trying to draw potentially all three of our attentions to, and I don't fully remember this episode, but I'm assuming I was also pushing yes on the relatableness pedal as well.So, I'm probably every bit as culpable as Daniel was.And if I wasn't in that particular show, because I can't remember, I know you were certainly would have been…
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, you were.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - You were.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, then I would have done it.I think perhaps, Nicole is probably trying to draw our attention to a larger framework that all three of us are within.So, this idea of any of us thinking that you need to, should be, want to be, don't have to be…the point that I think Nicole made is a very astute one, which is like:I don't fucking have to worry about being nice.I don't care.It's not something that matters to me.I'm not in an industry where I have to cultivate a nice persona online for fear of getting negative blowback in my professional life, or any of that kind of stuff.All of which, you do have to do and is fucked, and unfair, and not right.And I think— I don't want to put words in Nicole's mouth —but I think that's kind of what she was probably trying to get across to certainly Daniel and I.And it's a fair thing to acknowledge.Hedvig, you don't have to fucking be nice.You're absolutely right, Nicole.Hedvig can be relatable, and she can not be relatable, and all of those things are fine.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yep.If you want to be icy and aloof, that's totally cool.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ooh, resting bitch voice.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm so bad at that.I tried that for a while, like, I had a friend who speaks very little and I always thought she was very mysterious and cool, and I was like, "If I speak little, I'll be mysterious and cool as well," and it does not work at all.But I was going to say as well that I had an experience when I was quite young, like I think I was in my early 20s.And I had a blog where I wrote about things, and I've since I made that blog private.I wrote something about, like, some, like, weird literature I was reading, which included some weird stuff.My mom was working at a hospital, and she was working with patients who were not mentally well, who were abusing substances, and one of them found my blog, and thought that I was a horrible, perverted, disgusting person, and yelled at my mom.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ooh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And being a person with a very unique name, I can't hide.
• linkBen Ainslie - Unless you want to rock pseudonyms all the time kind of thing, like you've got to just wear it, kind of thing.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.And, also, like you said, I am in an industry where your online presence and what you say does matter.Like, people do pay attention.
• linkBen Ainslie - It sucks.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I tried to make sure that…I'm actually quite into some kinds of edgy comedy.Mainly, Valley Girls being obnoxious.Like, I love Dana Donnelly.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But like, they have this whole thing about like, "All men should be in jail, and they should only be let out if they could prove that they're good men." And I don't know.I think it's very funny and very obnoxious.But I try to not like some of that comedy on Twitter, because I know that people look at likes and it turns up in their feed.I tried to have a different Twitter account for a while, but you have to, like, switch accounts and remember which one's which, and I'm like:Ah, I don’t know.I'm not smart enough.Anyway, I appreciate it, Nicole, but I think that you are maybe also underestimating how, unfortunately, academia also puts some of that weight on me and not just my…certainly, not my male cohosts.They…
• linkBen Ainslie - No, no, no.Don't defend us.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yep, nope, that's cool.This…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, but you don’t.
• linkBen Ainslie - This is an important piece of feedback.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Sometimes, you try and even pull me into, like, perverted humor and I have to like…
• linkBen Ainslie - Which is concerning for an entirely different reason.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I've got at least one joke that Ben made, pulled from a broadcast, I think.
• linkBen Ainslie - Why?What?
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, no, no.
• linkBen Ainslie - What?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, I have.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's still there.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, it’s not.
• linkBen Ainslie - I don't…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, THAT one.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - MEEKLYI don’t know what I've done.What did I do?
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, hey, this has been a good discussion.I'm glad to hear about it.I enjoy interrogating things that I have said or thought.So I'm going to put this to our audience.Women of our audience, what's a word that people have used, intended to be a compliment, but has kind of been used to put you in the nonthreatening box, or the likeable box, or something that you don't feel men have a parallel expectation of.I would love to hear what expressions you've got.I wonder if people's experiences lined up.So, get those to us:hello@becauselanguage.com.
• linkBen Ainslie - And thank you to Nicole for just like, just…giving us one.I love it.Give us more ones, listeners.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yep, that's cool.LAUGHSLet's go to a comment from aengryballs on Facebook.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHSWow, we're really changing gears here.
• linkDaniel Midgley - "I wanted to point out something interesting with regard to the discussion of vowel inventories during the discussion on the Puzzle of Danish in Episode 24." Remember how it's a difficult language even for young children who are acquiring Danish, because it seems to have so many different vowels that they go:Holy crap, I can't figure this one out.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - A little bit they go, and then they're fine by the end of it, and they all learn, and they have a functioning adult society, to be fair.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's right.LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - By the way, that was a Swede saying that, which I could see the physical pain it caused her.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - High praise indeed.aengryballs says, "You talk about languages with very few vowels and languages of the Northern Caucasus region weren't mentioned.The more mainstream ones such as Chechen or Ingush have a 'normal' number of vowels," and I'm guessing what does that mean like five?
• linkBen Ainslie - No, no, but yeah, so, just to be clear, aengryballs put normal in parentheses themselves.
• linkDaniel Midgley - In quotes, yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Sorry, in quotes, yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - "But some linguists argue that certain of those, Ubykh was one of them, if I remember correctly, have only…" Could this be right?"Only one vowel phoneme as there are no minimal pairs to separate the vowel sounds used?" Have you…?
• linkBen Ainslie - First of all, linguists, could you please explain what minimal pairs are?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, so BAT and PAT would be a minimal pair, because they are exactly the same except for that first sound, and they mean different things.So, they are a minimal pair.
• linkBen Ainslie - Right.Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I have heard of languages with small numbers of vowel phonemes, but one??Does that sound right?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm looking it up now and it doesn't sound right.It might have at least two.So the thing is that, sometimesTICKING NOISEthey can sound a bit the same and also, there are things with length and arguments about what it means to be a different vowel.But it looks here on the Wikipedia article on the vowels that there's not just one.But very few.
• linkDaniel Midgley - aengryballs continues, "I'm listening to the YouChoob episode and I don't know if Ben ever got an answer to his question.But here's the story he was talking about, which is a video and not a book, Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom." It's that movie you were asking about, Ben, where somebody…
• linkBen Ainslie - I've actually…separate to this really awesome and helpful comment— thank you, aengryballs, I love when people do this, because I hate having a splinter in my mind this way —But it just randomly came across my digital desk separately as well.And, yeah, I'm planning to sit down and watch the whole thing.
• linkDaniel Midgley - "Good podcast, by the way.I really enjoy it." Last one from Ben, not the host one.
• linkBen Ainslie - Not me.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Not you.
• linkBen Ainslie - Not me.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Last time with Mignon Fogarty, we've talked about Woop Woop.Is there a place name called Woop Woop?
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm guessing Ben's contacted us because there is.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ben says, "There is at least one real Woop Woop up near Boyup Brook or there was for about three years until the jarrah ran out, although the forest still is officially called Woop Woop.But apparently, the earliest citation is from 1918, while the town was established in the early '20s.So, it's not 'the Woop Woop,' but it might have just been a coincidence." How about that, the forest?
• linkBen Ainslie - Or, it could have been the other way.It could have just been…like, someone could have named it that as a bit of a lark, right?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - If the name is going around, and Boyup Brook was a ways away from things, they might have been like, "Well, Woop Woop."
• linkDaniel Midgley - Inspired by the faraway phrase?
• linkDaniel MidgleyBen Ainslie - YEAH.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.Hey, Ben, thanks so much for that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - ENDING MUSIC
• linkHedvig Skirgård - If you have listened to our show and you liked it, you can tell us about it.If you don't like it, you can not tell us or anyone else about it.But if you do like it, you can get in touch with us.We are becauselangpod on all the socials.You can also leave us a message on SpeakPike…SpeakPike, SpeakPipe…argh.LAUGHTERSpeak Pipe!It's a pipe in which you speak into, and you can find that on our website becauselanguage.com and then, you can leave us a little message, say something you like or not like.For example, at the end of the show, when we have the comments, if you have a comment, you could actually speak in your audio and then we could play up your audio, and other people could hear your lovely voices.You can also send us an email at hello@becauselanguage.com.And if you did like the show, and this is…so anyone who's made it this far a way into the show and didn't like it, they can stop listening now.But if you did like it, you can continue.
• linkCHUCKLES
• linkBen Ainslie - Man, you were just really just self-flagellating like a mofo right now.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We are not that avoidant, are we?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - LAUGHSIf you got this far, and you don't like it, I don't know.
• linkBen Ainslie - Bravo.That's what I would say.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Bravo.
• linkBen Ainslie - Slow clap to you.Well done.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I don't know why you like torture, but fun for you.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hate listening is a thing.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Don't do it.No need to fill your life with hate.If you do like us and you want to fill your life with love, you can tell a friend about us or leave a review.We love it when we get reviews and sometimes, if you leave a fun review, we'll read it out on the show as well, so much we love them.And one friend of ours that does this a lot is Dustin of Sandman Stories.You can also support us by becoming a patron on Patreon.You'll get bonus episodes, and you can hang out with us on Discord, and I am going to upload pictures of my cats that I argue are the cutest cats.
• linkBen Ainslie - Incorrect.Objectively wrong.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ben is going to counter this.
• linkBen Ainslie - By showing you the best cat in the world.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And you're both going to include alt text.This is going to be so great.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I have two.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, it's okay.You're allowed to have two less good cats than my one perfect cat.That is a thing that's allowed to happen.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Maybe, when you combine Hedvig's cats into one…
• linkBen Ainslie - The death stare is so intense.LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Anyway, go on with your silly little reads.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Our patrons make it possible for us to make transcripts.That means that our shows are readable for people who like to read them, and searchable for people who like to search them.By the way, thanks to the entire team at SpeechDocs.They are doing a great job on our transcripts.A big shoutout to our top patrons, Dustin, Termy, Chris B, James S, Matt, Whitney, Chris L, Helen, Udo, Jack, PharaohKatt, LordMortis, Elías, Larry, Kristofer, James, Nigel, Meredith, Kate, Nasrin, Ayesha, Moe, Steele, Andrew, Manú, Rodger, Rhian, Colleen, glyph, Ignacio, Sonic Snejhog, Kevin, Jeff, Andy from Logophilius, Samantha, zo, Kathy, Rach, Cheyenne, Felicity, Amir, Andy R, O Tim, new this time:Alyssa.Hello.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hello.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And Kate B, who didn't contribute via Patreon, but instead with the one-time donation button on our blog, becauselanguage.com, which you can mash yourself, if you wish.Also, our newest patrons.Hello to you at the Listener level:Pauli, Breanna, Big Easy Blasphemy.Ooh, is that a podcast?I think I'm going to check that out.And at the friend level, Jillian.Big thanks to all of our amazing patrons.
• linkBen Ainslie - Our theme music has been written and performed by Drew Krapljanov, who's a member of Ryan Beno and of Didion's Bible.Thank you for listening.We'll catch you next time.Because Language.
• linkBen Ainslie - PAUSE
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mwah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Great fun.Thank you, both.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I've already uploaded a picture of cats.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - BOOP
• linkDaniel Midgley - Are you ready?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm chewing.Put something in my mouth.
• linkBen Ainslie - What are you chewing?What is that?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, what are your chewing?
• linkBen Ainslie - Is that a mini-cinnamon scroll?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, you buy them from IKEA.They're called Gifflar.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Wow.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - They are not technically cinnamon scrolls, because they're oriented like this, not like that.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah, okay.Cool cool cool.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - We have a different word for that, because it's a very important distinguisher.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHSOne's a swirl and one's a scroll, I guess, or something like that.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.These are Gifflar and the other ones are buns.Don't ask.But Swedes will be like,SNARPY TEACHER VOICE"No, that's not a mini-cinnamon scroll, because it's oriented the different way." Like I just did.Anyway, you can buy them at IKEA.They're very nice.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, I might.I might check them out.I might buy a set of them, and then I might throw them out just like every other food that I buy from IKEA.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, well, I don't buy food at IKEA for that exact reason.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Because you know that it's just going to get tossed?That's what I reckon.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Wait, what are you talking about?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Happened with the veggie balls, it happened with everything but those toffee things, those are gooood.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm very confused.I go to IKEA specifically for food.
• linkBen Ainslie - Noooo.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That is fine.And you can have that because…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But I also know what things are and how to use them.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, that's great.That's true.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm not sure that's the distinguishing characteristic there.Like, I do like IKEA for a lot of reasons.Their food is the Swedish version of Walmart food though.Like, it's not great.That is not a good thing.That was not a compliment.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, I know.But like, if you want…I have a bag of like…So, there's two differentphone ringskinds of vegetarian meatballs.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, hang on.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - One is bad, one is good.
• linkBen Ainslie - Sorry, I'm getting a call from my partner.One sec.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - The one they have, which is basically just carby is not good.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And then, the one that's actually like proper protein is actually all right.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Just whenever I try to buy something at IKEA, I think:"Oh, that looks pretty good.I think I'll give it a try." And then, I get it home and I'm like, "I don't want to eat that."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That happens with me when I go out of my…things I know I like.Sometimes, I'm like, "Oh, crispbread." Maybe that's nice." It's not nice.But if I buy the things I know that I eat, like the crisps, and the crispbread, and …coffee's actually not too bad, weirdly enough.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, okay.DISPLAYS PACKAGEI've got the KNÄCKEBRÖD RÅG.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, so that's the second best one.The best one is the one that's really big, the big round ones.Those are really good.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.You think I'm eating this?This is not a happening thing.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Why do you buy it, then?
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's like that pair of pants where you go, "That looks nice," and then you keep it for 10 years, and then you say, "You know what?I haven't worn these in 10 years." I'm going to look at that in 10 years and I'm going to say, "I haven't eaten those." And then I'm going to donate them to Good Sam's, just like I did the pants, and that'll be the end of it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.No, I don't think you should buy things that you're not going to use.That sounds wasteful.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I think so, too.And that's not a criticism of the food quality or anything.I know I'm not going to wear those crackers.I'm not going to wear them.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - BOOP
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I never asked you how you are.How are you?
• linkDaniel Midgley - I am at a point in my life right now where I am feeling extremely, extremely fortunate and grateful every day.
• linkBen Ainslie - Wow.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Wow.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And without even trying.
• linkBen Ainslie - You haven't found god again, have you?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ummmmmmmm…no.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ooo, that was a long um.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, that was a serious um.That was a proper um.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The reason I said 'um' was because I did something last night that I haven't done for seven years.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Did you pray?
• linkBen Ainslie - GASPSYou prayed.
• linkDaniel Midgley - What‽ No!!That's ridiculous!No.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That's not ridiculous!
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, okay!It was a long um after I said you found god!It's a pretty logical conclusion.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - A lot of very sensible people pray.It's a perfectly normal thing to do.
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, it's not.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Anyway, you didn't pray.What did you do?
• linkDaniel Midgley - I had an online fight with a religious person.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Whyyyy?
• linkDaniel Midgley - What is the point?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That's the opposite.That's the very opposite.Why would you do that?Why?
• linkDaniel Midgley - What is the point?When you fight God, you become God.It's like when you stare into the abyss, God stares back.So, you know.
• linkBen Ainslie - So what you're saying, you have become an irate God-botherer on the internet?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Just even getting close to that stuff just…
• linkBen Ainslie - I still don't feel we've answered the fundamental question of why your um was so long.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Having the god thing in my face again was enough to be like:"Ew, I think I found god." Like I stepped in something?
• linkBen Ainslie - Like I found God, but it was a bad thing.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, ew, gross.No.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - For reasons, funny reasons, I've been getting into Hegel and Nietzsche lately.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - The moral philosophers?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hard to stay out.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.But there was this idea that some of them articulate and some commenters particularly which is like:if you are engaging with it and fighting the other side of the coin, you are admitting the existence of them.What you should do for your own health and for the health of the world is be like:That's good for you, and move on with your life, and above it.
• linkBen Ainslie - Sounds like both Hegel and Nietzsche were both really avoidant personality types.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHSWere they ever!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.Anyway, if anyone wants to-- Liv Agar's podcast about Nietzsche and punishment is really good, if you want to get into this, like…what does it mean for a society to have punishment?
• linkBen Ainslie - I think it's like…I guess the premise is, I've been playing a lot of Semantle, recently.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes, you have!
• linkBen Ainslie - You know how in some games of Semantle, like opposites will have a really similarly close score, because semantically black and white are actually very similar in concept and relationships.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Exactly.
• linkDaniel MidgleyHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Even if you're on the opposite side of the coin, that's still affirming the coin.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That's the idea, yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - As with all things, if we can relate it back to a game, dummy Ben brain can understand.
• linkBOOP
• linkBen Ainslie - Look, if my life is ex…ahem.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - Look, if my life ex…EXASPERATION NOISES
• linkDaniel Midgley - Go, One-Take Ainslie.
• linkLAUGHTER