Shows
Speculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. LLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. L — The SpecGram LingNerds are on their own this time. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss the dangers of mispronouncing the names of Canadian provinces, and then advise students as to what they should not do. They also fail to celebrate the 50th episode. Many outtakes are provided.2017-01-0900 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLIXLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLIX — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Tim Pulju. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss purported evidence against Chomsky, and then reveal the titles of their books, all beginning with Language:.2017-01-0200 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLVIIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLVIII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Kean Kaufmann. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss a one hundred word language, and then move on to the royal and other orders for adjectives.2016-12-2600 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLVIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLVII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Kean Kaufmann. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds briefly discuss some innovative bits of English Grammar—no, totally!—and then try out some new parlor games featuring archaic English words.2016-12-1900 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLVILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLVI — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Pete Bleackley. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss something else that tries to look like iconicity, and then look at some innovative and/or abominable on-going changes in English.2016-12-1200 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLVLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLV — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Pete Bleackley. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss something that tries to look like iconicity, and then share their favorite linguistical jokes.2016-12-0500 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLIVLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLIV — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined once again by returning guests Jason Wells-Jensen and Tim Pulju. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss tongue twister research and reveal their academic nightmares. Stick around for the outtakes to hear some “interesting” “musical” interludes and other fun stuff.2015-05-2900 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLIIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLIII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guests Tim Pulju and Jason Wells-Jensen. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss how to fake a language, and then contemplate ways in which English spelling, morphology, etc., could be revamped.2015-05-2200 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Hedvig Skirgård. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds see what comes out of their mouths after reading an article claiming awareness comes after speaking, and then they discuss various linguistical ideas—real and imagined—that are ready for retirement.2015-05-1500 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLI — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Hedvig Skirgård. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds go into denial about their own “fingerprint words”, and then flip the script with some descriptivist confessions.2015-05-0800 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XL — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined yet again by returning guest Madalena Cruz-Ferreira. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss Twitter Tribes and why biologists shouldn't do corpus linguistics, and then make a number of particularly humorous prescriptivist confessions.2015-01-0900 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXIXLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXIX — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined again by returning guest Madalena Cruz-Ferreira. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss angry texting orthography, and then attempt to lend a helping hand to non-academics.2015-01-0200 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXVIIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXVIII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined yet again by returning guest Tim Pulju. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss automating historical linguistic reconstructions, and then discuss ideas for new linguistics- and language-themed holidays.2014-12-2600 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXVIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXVII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Tim Pulju. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss cross-linguistics differences in language acquisition (with special references to lemurs) and share some more Randomata. Also, identify the Secret Word of the Day and email Trey (@SpecGram.com) within a week of the episode's release for a chance to win a free copy of The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics!2014-12-1900 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXVILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXVI — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined again by guest Jason Wells-Jensen. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss the pointlessness of baby talk compared to the pointlessness of lemur screeches, and review more comprehensive exam questions. Also, identify the Secret Word of the Day and email Trey (@SpecGram.com) within a week of the episode's release for a chance to win a free copy of The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics!2014-12-1200 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXVLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXV — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Jason Wells-Jensen. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss the wisdom of trying to revive “Indo-European”, and partake in some Linguistic Parlor Games. Also, identify the Secret Word of the Day and email Trey (@SpecGram.com) within a week of the episode’s release for a chance to win a free copy of The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics!2014-12-0500 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXIVLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXIV — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by once again by returning guest Devan Steiner. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss whether or not all the forms of "to be" in Indo-European languages are derived from Arabic roots (hint: they're not!), and take on Comprehensive Exam Questions in computational linguistics, pidgins, phonology, and more.2014-05-0200 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXIIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXIII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Devan Steiner. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss how physicists rediscovered glottochronology and have used it to date the Iliad less accurately than philologists already had, and in the spirit of such cross-disciplinary enterprise, they offer a helping linguistic hand to other fields, like math, biology, astronomy, and chemistry.2014-04-2500 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXII — The SpecGram LingNerds go it alone again in this episode. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss their prescriptive confessions, whether science is generally screwed, and whether linguistics is a science and thus also screwed.2014-04-1800 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXI — The SpecGram LingNerds go it alone in this episode. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss word aversion and random interesting linguisticky factoids.2014-04-1100 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXXLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXX — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined yet again by Madalena Cruz-Ferreira. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss a prescriptive terrorist, and our favorite SpecGram articles.2014-04-0400 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXIXLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXIX — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined again by Madalena Cruz-Ferreira. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss a proposal for a new character for "the", and reflect on the coolest features English could have.2014-03-2800 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXVIIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXVIII — The SpecGram LingNerds go it alone once again. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss some problems with (the) French, and reveal their least favorite subdisciplines of linguistics.2013-08-2700 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXVIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXVII — The SpecGram LingNerds go it alone this time. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss the grammaticalization of "slash" and review some Comprehensive Exam questions and answers.2013-08-0600 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXVILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXVI — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined again by guest Aya Katz. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss whether English has a perfectly phonetic orthography, and some of the interesting languagey things that linguists notice out in the world. (And in the outtakes Trey insults various programming languages left and right, potentially sparking a future holy war.)2013-06-2800 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXVLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXV — The SpecGram LingNerds (including new LingNerd Sheri Wells-Jensen) are joined by guest Aya Katz. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss the applications of involuntary gripping in response to hand-related verbs, and review a surprisingly large number of language-related books.2013-05-2300 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXIVLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXIV — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined yet again by Gabe Olsen. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics—with returning guest Jonathan Downie—the LingNerds discuss the unreasonable prestigiousness of mathematics, and review likely comprehensive exam questions and effective answers thereto.2013-04-2700 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXIIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXIII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined again by Gabe Olsen, this time for the whole show. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics—with guest Jonathan Downie—the LingNerds discuss whether English is a Scandinavian language, and review a list of the worst words of 2012.2013-03-2200 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined yet again by Sheri Wells-Jensen. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, they discuss whether linguists make grammaticality judgements like "normal people", and confess more of their prescriptive tendencies.2013-01-0400 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXI — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Sheri Wells-Jensen for Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, and she sticks around for the rest of the show. They discuss the "reading level" of US Congressional speeches, and then they discuss the ins and outs of teaching linguistics at university.2012-12-0700 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XXLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XX — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined again by guest Madalena Cruz-Ferreira for Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics. They also discuss the spread of the -ome suffix and the biological approach to solving the riddle of the urheim of PIE. Finally, they discuss more questions and answers from comprehensive exams.2012-11-0500 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XIXLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XIX — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Madalena Cruz-Ferreira for Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics. They also discuss the fact that German speakers can’t say “squirrel” and whether “modulo” is the nerdiest preposition. Finally, they give more Prescriptivist Confessions.2012-10-0500 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XVIIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XVIII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined again by guest Editor Emeritus Tim Pulju for Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics; and then he sticks around for the rest of the podcast, again. They also discuss otovermology and whether Burushaski is Indo-European, and interview Tim about his early days with SpecGram.2012-09-0500 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XVIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XVII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Editor Emeritus Tim Pulju for Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics; and then he sticks around for the rest of the podcast. They also discuss aggressiveness in teenage girls caused by the character limitations of social media and the information density of various languages, as well as exploring a number of phonetical things you know that you may not know that you know.2012-08-0500 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XVILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XVI — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined again by guest Scott Yarborough for some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics. They also discuss doing NLP “from scratch” and automated news story writing, as well as exploring a number of language-related conspiracy theories.2012-07-1500 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XVLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XV — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Scott Yarborough for some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics. They also discuss bio- and linguistic diversity, the likability of simple names, and give high-quality sample answers to common linguistics comprehensive exam questions.2012-06-2600 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XIVLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XIV — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined again by guest Gabe Olsen for some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics. They also discuss how our brains make other people less boring, the likability of left-handed- vs right-handed-typed words, and a book about hyperpolyglots.2012-06-0500 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XIIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XIII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Gabe Olsen for some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics. They also discuss chimpanzee gestures and the shutter-upper gun, and indulge in more Prescriptivist Confessions.2012-05-1000 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XII — The SpecGram LingNerds discuss goat and other mammalian accents, and liberal vs. conservative linguistics. They also investigate more Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics with repeat guest Sheri Wells-Jensen, and have another visit with Mr. Linguist.2012-04-0700 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XI — The SpecGram LingNerds discuss how vowels control your brain, and whether toddlers listen to themselves, or are just stupid. They also investigate more Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics with guest Sheri Wells-Jensen, and discuss their futurological visions for English.2012-03-1000 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. XLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. X — The SpecGram LingNerds discuss Danish and its vowels, and Proto-Ape-Wave. They also investigate more Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, and confess their prescriptive tendencies.2011-12-2100 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. IXLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. IX — The SpecGram LingNerds discuss parrot naming practices and "discuss" the "loss" of "cursive" "handwriting". They also investigate more Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, and Ask Mr Linguist about the legitimacy of the word "funner".2011-11-2000 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. VIIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. VIII — The SpecGram LingNerds discuss the "oldest" words in English and whether kids really are better than adults at learning languages. They also investigate more Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, and Ask Mr Linguist about a mythical beast called the "thesaurus".2011-10-2000 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. VIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. VII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by surprise guest Comptroller General Joey Whitford for Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, discuss stubborn speakers of a dying language and robot conlangers, enjoy more Words of Wisdom from Lady Fantod, and discuss the Slater Method with its creator.2011-08-1900 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. VILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. VI — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Devan Steiner for Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, discuss a Boston Accent Eradication Program and the suddenly uncertain future of the Oxford Comma, enjoy more Words of Wisdom from Lady Fantod, and answer tweets from fans.2011-07-2100 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. VLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. V — The SpecGram LingNerds discuss just how wrong Chomsky is and whether phoneme inventories shrink with distance form Africa, and investigate more Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics. We also enjoy more Words of Wisdom from Lady Fantod and grill DJP on his experience creating the Dothraki language for HBO.2011-06-2000 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. IVLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. IV — The SpecGram LingNerds discuss the anatomical oddities of phoneticians, the fact that Big Brother may now be watching your every word, and more Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics. We also enjoy Words of Wisdom from Lady Fantod and discuss Twitter Feedback from “fans” of the show. Someone leaves the tape running too long, but power through it for an explosive musical bonus at the end of the episode.2011-05-2000 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. IIILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. III — The SpecGram LingNerds discuss linguistic “thought experiments”, physicists modelling bilingual societies, a letter from a young proto-linguist concerning the word “lukewarm”, and Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics.2011-04-1500 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. IILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. II — The SpecGram LingNerds discuss mammal individuality and population size, architectural linguistics, a letter from a young proto-linguist concerning Urban Dictionary; and Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics.2011-03-2000 minSpeculative Grammarian PodcastLanguage Made Difficult, Vol. ILanguage Made Difficult, Vol. I — The SpecGram LingNerds discuss the Sapir Worf Hypothesis; “New” vs “Nyoo”; and a letter from a young proto-linguist concerning IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy. Plus Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics.2011-03-1000 min