The Vocal Fries

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Dr Valerie Fridland about her newest book, Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents.Maine Monitor interview with PlatnerPlatner's apologySupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Drs Lynnette Arnold and Anna I. Corwin about their new co-edited book (with Jennifer R Guzmán and Emily Avera), Language and Health in Action (ebook), along with two authors in the same volume, Drs Stephanie Keeney Parks and Abby Mack about their chapters "Autism Diagnostics as White Public Space in US Clinics" and "In the Spirit, in the Flesh: Performative Language, Embodiment, and Sustaining Recovery in Appalachia".Code Switch episode on Trump's culty languageSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Kory Stamper, about her newest book, True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color from Azure to Zinc Pink. Out March 31, 2026!Chatbots and biasSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk about the Epstein emails and Chomsky's correspondence with him. Carrie swears more than usual.Support Tim Brookes KickstarterSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk about the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year.TACOSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Tim Brookes about his newest book, By Hand, about the importance of handwriting.NBER reportCurrent AffairsWOTY: 6-7 rage baitparasocialvibe codingAI slopmaple washingSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk about Makaton, an artificial sign-based system, particularly Sara Novič's article about it.Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk about random words that are scary or scary-adjacent.facsismeldritchghostvampireSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailWe have a few things to say about Pinker.Part of the War on ScienceThe Language InstinctPinker on Race RealismCo-authored paper on overregularizationThe Open Letter to the LSAThe article that Carrie was interviewed for, but not named, about the Open LetterOur episode on dogwhistlingThe Harper's LetterGuardian on his appearance on AporiaSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Adam Aleksic about his new book, Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language.Bromism and ChatGPTSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Megan C. Reynolds, Dwell magazine editor, about her  book, Like: A History of the World's Most Hated (and Misunderstood) Word.Putin and RussianSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Paulette van der Voet and Martina Terrazzano, PhD students at the University of Umea, about their class called “Linguistics and the Eurovision Song Contest”.Top 20 Eurovision songsMalta and EstoniaSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailWe talk with Dr Lorna Gibb about her newest book, Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages.Steven Pinker:Harvard Derangement Syndromevs. LSAJews and IQSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Drs Emily M. Bender, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington, and Alex Hanna, Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), about their new book, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want, out May 13, 2025.Virtual Book Launch May 8, 2025, 2-4 PDTBender v. BubeckInventing Intelligence: On the History of Complex Information Processing and Artificial Intelligence in the United States in the Mid-Twentieth CenturyRoxane Gay's anti-AI stanceThe TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence The Conduit MetaphorKevin Roose's Conversation with BingMystery AI Hype Theatre 3000 Intro:UK ruling on the legal definition of "woman"JK Rowling looking smugSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Gabe Henry about his new book, Enough is enuf: Our failed attempts to make English eezier to spell.Puerto Rico and English as an Official LanguageSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Dr Gerald Roche, Lecturer in the Department of Languages and Cultures at La Trobe University, about his new book, The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet, language oppression, solidarity, China and Tibet. LSA's response to the EO on English as the Official Language of the USSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Massimiliano Canzanella about the Neapolitan language and how it is perceived in Italy.Asian languages and the LA firesSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Dr Adam Benkato, Associate Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley, about Arabic.codeswitching in incarcerationSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk to Dr Ayala Fader, professor of anthropology at Fordham University, and Dr Mike Mena, Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY, about their new project, the Demystifying Language Project, where academics and high school students work together to rewrite linguistic articles into more accessible versions.First article: Speech or SilenceIntro from our patron René:Barron's: MP makes her first speech in sign languageSpeech of the yearSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk to Dr Leonard Cassuto, Professor of English at Fordham University, about his class called "Literature and Psychology of Disgust," which explores how language evokes emotional responses, particularly disgust, and his book Academic Writing as if Readers Matter, which was released in September. Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Elia Powers, Associate Professor of Journalism at Towson University, about his book Performing the News: Identity, Authority, and the Myth of Neutrality.5 Podcasts for Word Nerds NY TimesWhy Does Trump Do That Weird Capitalization Thing? HuffPost (sometimes Gillon is misspelled as Gillion, as per uzh)Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Dr Laura C. Chávez-Moreno, assistant professor at UCLA in the Departments of Chicana/o and Central American Studies and Education, about her book How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America, coming out October 1.Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Dr Robert Henderson, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, about his newest book (with Dr Elin Mccready), Signaling without Saying: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Dogwhistles.Botanical taxonomyCommon names of birdsSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Tim Brookes about his newest book, Writing Beyond Writing, what writing is, his journey to caring about Endangered Alphabets and his favourite scripts.Nuxalk albumRed BubbleInsufferable TwitsSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Dr Ross Perlin,  co-director of the Manhattan-based non-profit Endangered Language Alliance, about his new book, Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York.Language Map of NYCASL at the NHL Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Drs Kris Aric Knisley and Eric Louis Russell about their book Redoing linguistic worlds: Unmaking gender binaries, remaking gender pluralities, gender, critical linguistics, trans linguistics, and uneffing all things.Sperm Whale "phonetic alphabet"Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Drs Rusty Barrett, Professor of Linguistics, Jennifer Cramer, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Kentucky, and Kevin B. McGowan, Associate Professor of Linguistics and Director of the University of Kentucky Phonetics Lab (all at at the University of Kentucky), about their book English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. New language in AustraliaChaos/order muppetsSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Dr Anne Curzan about her book Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words.Trump's brainSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Dr Sheri Wells-Jensen,  Associate Professor at Bowling Green State University, about her chapter Cognition, Sensory Input, and Linguistics : A Possible Language for Blind Aliens in the new book Xenolinguistics: Towards a Science of Extraterrestrial Language, blind aliens, how languages can be, and her appreciation of the movie Arrival.Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Dr Lee Moore about the linguistic situation in China, particularly the hostile environment towards Uyghurs.He is also the author of "A dyslexic learning Chinese".WOTY23Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Dr Suzanne Wertheim about her book, The Inclusive Language Field Guide: 6 Simple Principles for Avoiding Painful Mistakes and Communicating Respectfully.pentl'atch named a living languageSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Dr Rebecca Roache about her book, For F*ck's Sake: Why Swearing is Shocking, Rude, and Fun. Great British Bake OffSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Dr Bryce McCleary, Lecturer in Linguistics at Rice University, about his paper “'We All Country': Region, Place, and Community Language among Oklahoma City Drag Performers".Australia referendumSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Poppy Mardall, the founder and chair of Poppy’s, about the Dead Good Words campaign around dehumanizing and euphemistic language about death.Calm History podcastWest Virginia University shutting down World LanguagesWVU FinancesJonah KatzSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Dr Felicity Meakins, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Queensland, and Briony Barr, a visual-conceptual-teaching artist and co-founder of the Scale Free Network, about their book Tamarra: A Story of Termites on Gurindji Territory, why termites are important to Gurindji people, and why they wanted to work on this project.Ken knows how to fListen on PoduramaSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk to Erin McCarthy,  Editor-in-Chief of Mental Floss, about her new book (with the Mental Floss team), Mental Floss Curious Compendium of Wonderful Words: A Miscellany of Obscure Terms, Bizarre Phrases & Surprising EtymologiesSilver Lining of pandemic Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Dr Robert Englebretson, Associate Professor in Linguistics at Rice University, about all things braille. Sources:https://www.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716423000061http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~reng/ling327syllabus.pdfhttps://news2.rice.edu/2019/07/23/rice-study-seeks-to-improve-braille-literacy-2/Kleege, Georgina. 2006. "Visible braille/invisible blindness." Journal  of Visual Culture, 5 (2): 209-218. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470412906066909https://pbs.jhu.edu/directory/marina-bedny/Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Dr Valerie Fridland about her new book, Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English, how to pronounce Nevada, and all things language.Charles Boberg's article on 'foreign (a)'Words with no English equivalentsSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailDr. Bob Kennedy is back! Carrie and Megan pick his brain about all things language in sports. He shoots, he scores!Intro discussion:video Vox articleSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Rachel E. Gross about her book, Vagina Obscura, and the language we use to describe pregnancy, vaginas, cervixes, etc.Whale vocal fry:nprwaponytimesBackground on phonic lipsSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk to Dr Ilan Stavans about his new book, The People's Tongue: Americans and the English Language.Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk to Dr. Dennis Baron, Emeritus Professor of English at  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, about his newest book You Can't Always Say What You Want: The Paradox of Free Speech.What do moos mean?Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Dr Geneva Smitherman/Dr. G about her book My Soul Look Back In Wonder, narrative essays about her race, gender, class, and linguistic consciousness as a member of the Black Power Generation of the 1960s and 70s.Quebec economic immigrantsSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailExample bonus episode from November 2022.We talk WOTY22!Full episode coming soonSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Jonathan "radbwa faroush" Myers and Adrien  Guillory-Chatman, members of the first Wikitongues cohort, about Kouri-Vini, aka Louisiana Creole, a French Creole spoken mainly in Louisiana.   Collins' WOTY22A discussion of Ukrainian to English transliterationDictionary.com's new wordsLearn Kouri-ViniSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Maureen Kosse, linguistics PhD student at University of Colorado Boulder, about her paper "Ted Cruz Cucks Again",  the origins and meaning of "cuck",  white supremacy, antisemitism, and the alt-right.Check out The Story of Woman podcast Carrie mentions in the introThe Authority GapMorality of AbortionSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Dr JPB Gerald, host of Unstandardized English, a podcast about language teaching, race, and whiteness,  about his new book Antisocial Language Teaching: English and the Pervasive Pathology of Whiteness.Want to edit video or audio? Try Descript:https://www.descript.com?lmref=H1fP3gSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailYou asked for it and it finally happened: the You're Wrong About/Vocal Fries crossover event is here.Carrie and Megan talk with Sarah Marshall about bimbos, vocal fry, the word "like" and many other things. Want to edit video or audio? Try Descript:https://www.descript.com?lmref=H1fP3gSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Kory Stamper, lexicographer extraordinaire, about the history and use of the word "bullsh*t".Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie and Megan talk with Dr. John Rickford, emeritus professor at Stanford, about his memoir, Speaking my Soul: Race, Life and Language, growing up in Guyana, moving to the United States, and his love of linguistics and Black Talk.Fifth anniversary sign upSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at [email protected] for listening and keep calm and fry on