iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 21/08/2026

In this Lingthusiasm zine, @gretchenmcculloch.com gets a little bit too enthusiastic about a horrifying metaphor to encourage you to explore the workings of your own meat clarinet For more zines and downloadable files to print your own, check out our zine page: lingthusiasm.com/zines

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 21/08/2026

We have new merch! You're either going to love it or hate it. Introducing the meat clarinet, a deeply cursed body horror metaphor for how you can shape your vocal tract to create sounds. Anatomically questionable yet deeply disturbing, check out the full range now: www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/1772...

A white mug on a white background with a large scale image. The image is of a meat clarinet, a digital illustration of a cross section of a human head from the top of the nose to the middle of the neck, in light pink human meat colour, with added texture lines. A red sinus cavity and oesophagus extends down to become a clarinet of the same meaty colour and texture (yes, it's horrifying), with three action/spit lines at the bottom. Black and white lowercase bubble text down the left says 'meat clarinet'.

A white woman with brunette hair wearing a powder blue boxy cut t-shirt with a large image in the centre. The image is of a meat clarinet, a digital illustration of a cross section of a human head from the top of the nose to the middle of the neck, in light pink human meat colour, with added texture lines. A red sinus cavity and oesophagus extends down to become a clarinet of the same meaty colour and texture (yes, it's horrifying), with three action/spit lines at the bottom. Black and white lowercase bubble text down the left says 'meat clarinet'.

A holographic sticker of a meat clarinet, a digital illustration of a cross section of a human head from the top of the nose to the middle of the neck, in light pink human meat colour, with added texture lines. A red sinus cavity and oesophagus extends down to become a clarinet of the same meaty colour and texture (yes, it's horrifying), with three action/spit lines at the bottom. Black and white lowercase bubble text down the left says 'meat clarinet'.

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 21/08/2026

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 01/08/2026

Why does "ie" turn "dog" into itty bitty "doggie"? In this Lingthusiasm zine, Leah Velleman gets enthusiastic about diminutives. Yes, this one is extra tiny, it's a diminutive zine about diminutives! A zinelet? Or zineling? For more lingthusiastic zines: lingthusiasm.com/zines

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 28/07/2026

The same gesture can mean different things, or have different names in different languages. In this Lingthusiasm zine, @superlinguo.bsky.social gets enthusiastic about these "emblem gestures" For more lingthusiastic zines: lingthusiasm.com/zines

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 18/07/2026

Here are two shapes. If you had to assign the name "bouba" to one and "kiki" to the other, which name would you give to which? In this Lingthusiasm zine, @gretchenmcculloch.com gets enthusiastic about these two linguistically famous shapes Print it yourself here: lingthusiasm.com/post/8223518...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 02/07/2026

please remember to adopt a medium posture today in the middle of the day and go uhhh for World Schwa Day from our episode about real and silly linguistics holidays www.patreon.com/posts/142860...

Lauren: I think we could also have a go at making World Schwa Day happen.
Gretchen: What day would you propose for that?
Lauren: It would have to be the very middle of the year (which I now realise I’m not sure if that’s the 1st of July of the 30th of June), and it would have to change on a leap year.
Gretchen: According to Wikipedia it is July 2nd.
Lauren: Right, July 2nd. So, July 2nd at midday, peak schwa day.
Gretchen: July 2nd at midday everyone just stand outside and go /ə:/. That can be schwa day.
Lauren: Schwa Day – it’s extremely mid. You can’t make it too much of a big deal because it’s schwa. It’s unstressed. It’s not a big deal.
Gretchen: It’s just sort of chill. I think that’s particularly good in the North American context because a lot of border cities between Canada and the US will celebrate both July 1st, which is Canada Day, and July 4th, which is American Independence Day, and they’ll have fireworks on both of those days. It’s nice to have a lull day in the middle.
Lauren: Oh, I was gonna say we’ve got a new holiday for them where they could just do both at once.
Gretchen: But they have to put off incredibly quiet fireworks if it’s Schwa Day.

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 19/06/2026

Update: I tried making an HTML link in soundcloud and got this error message saying that HTML is not supported, so yeah this seems to be a @soundcloud.dev problem

Textfield saying: For links to things mentioned in this episode plus the HTML syntax for a hyperlink going to https://lingthusiasm.com/post/819808519023968256/lingthusiasm-episode-117-what-makes-for-beautiful
Error message saying: HTML is not supported, please only use plain text.

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 02/06/2026

You can see all the Lingthusiasm scarves in various colours (including rainbow for when you want to wear your linguistics nerdery to the Pride parade?) by selecting the category "linguistics scarves" from Filters > Collections (idk why redbubble won't let us link to it directly)

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 02/06/2026

Scarves with the international Phonetic Alphabet on them! Scarves with all of the possible combinatorial tree structures of three nodes or less! Scarves with our favourite esoteric Unicode symbols! Scarves with bouba and kiki! Scarves with Gavagai the rabbit leaping past!

I'm holding up the esoteric Unicode symbols scarf in medium blue at an airport on my way to the Unicode conference

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 02/06/2026

Redbubble is currently having a 20% off sale on scarves and I'm not sure how long it'll last but if you've been thinking of picking up a Lingthusiasm scarf now might be a good time! www.redbubble.com/people/lingt...

A cup of tea on a wooden table surrounded by four nerdy print scarves draped around it: a red scarf with random IPA characters, black with IPA characters, light blue with tree structure diagrams, and off-white with tree diagrams

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 25/05/2026

Ever since I watched Sesame Street as a kid, I've thought that all sponsorships should come with a letter of the alphabet. That's why we give supporters at the Ling-phabet tier and higher their very own character of the International Phonetic Alphabet lingthusiasm.com/supporters

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 22/05/2026

Yessss we cracked 5000 and I even managed to get a round number screenshot before we ticked over!! Great job team! 💚💚💚

5000 people have taken this quiz
View their answers >

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 15/05/2026

Gesture: every language has them, but what do they have to do with the emoji on your phone? Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about Lauren's new book 'Gesture: A Slim Guide' from Oxford University Press in our episode 'A hand-y guide to gesture' Full episode here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 11/05/2026

Noon: lend your ears to the idioms episode!

A calendar reading:
7am - beat the dead horse
8am - push someone's buttons
9am - skate on thin ice
9:30 - beat around the bush
10am - put in my 2 cents, knock it till I try it
11am address the elephant in the room

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 08/05/2026

Live from Lingthusiasm HQ, audio editing is undergoing an important quality control audit from the big boss (please say hi to Gremlin the cat!)

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 30/04/2026

Legible arrangements and kindred spirits for everyone! @gretchenmcculloch.com gets enthusiastic about surprise!collabing with @erikamoen.bsky.social on Quips, one of @patreon.com's new discovery features Our collab happened organically and this video was made possible with Patreon #paidbypatreon

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 10/04/2026

We’re taking you on a journey to new linguistic destinations, so come along for the ride and don’t forget to hold on! From ‘Welcome back aboard the metaphor train’, the episode where we get enthusiastic about our unlocked bonus episode on metaphors! soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 13/03/2026

Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among some morphemes From ‘Micro to macro - The levels of language’. Listen to the full episode here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 05/03/2026

We hear this from people a lot: your podcast got me enthusiastic about linguistics too, but now I need more people to share my enthusiasm with! While we definitely also endorse getting your friends and family on the linguistics fan-wagon, may we also suggest the Lingthusiasm Discord server?

Screenshot of Lingthusiasm discord channel menu, featuring highlighted channels called introductions, Lingthusiasm podcast, general linguistics ish, everything else, language learning, academia and jobs, linguistics memes and cute stuff, daily word games, food, non English chat, language games
Plus greyed-out channels including: welcome, announcements, suggestions and help, and pronouns and optional roles

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 29/01/2026

From the episode where we get enthusiastic about how we manage to understand each other when we’re learning new words - or when useful folk categories, like “trees” and “fish” don’t line up with evolutionary taxonomies... Listen to the full episode here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 26/12/2025

Day 25 of #ThatsMyJam! Salted Caramel, with What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles You can listen to us get enthusiastic about how language interacts with your other senses like vision and touch here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Green background with white text that says 'That's My Jam! A Lingthusiasm episode pairing for every day of the Bonne Maman Jam Advent Calendar'. A photo of a tiny jam of jar with a red gingham lid and cursive French script on a colourful background, set in a polaroid frame, with navy blue text that says ‘Salted Caramel’. The photo is surrounded by line drawings of large and small and stars. Below that is white text that says ‘What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles’

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 23/12/2025

Day 23 of #ThatsMyJam! Rhubarb & Strawberry, with You heard about it but I was there - Evidentiality You can listen to us get enthusiastic about how we come to know things, and how different languages let us talk about this, here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 23/12/2025

Day 23 of #ThatsMyJam! Raspberry & Lychee, with On the nose - How the nose shapes language You can listen to us get enthusiastic about the nose here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 22/12/2025

Day 21 of #ThatsMyJam! Strawberry & Passionfruit, with Love and fury at the linguistics of emotions You can listen to us get enthusiastic about the layers of language that are involved in emotions here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 22/12/2025

Day 20 of #ThatsMyJam! Peach, Blackcurrant, & Sichuan Peppercorn, with Whoa!! A surprise episode??? For me??!! You can listen to us get enthusiastic about surprise here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 20/12/2025

Day 19 of #ThatsMyJam! Italian Mandarins, with The science and fiction of Sapir-Whorf You can listen to us get enthusiastic about the science and fiction of linguistic relativity, popularly known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 18/12/2025

Day 18 of #ThatsMyJam! Cherry & Pink Peppercorn, with Real swear words vs pseudo swears You can listen to our extra special bonus edition from the vault, where we get enthusiastic about our first sweary episode, for free on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/131301...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 18/12/2025

Day 17 of #ThatsMyJam! Pear, Clementine, & Cinnamon, with Emoji are Gesture Because Internet You can listen to us get enthusiastic about emoji, and how gesture studies can bring us to a better understanding of these new digital pictures, here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 17/12/2025

Day 16 of #ThatsMyJam! Orange, Yuzu, & Grapefruit, with Writing is a technology You can listen to us get enthusiastic about writing systems, and how the structure and history of a language contribute to the massively multigenerational project of devising them, here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 16/12/2025

Day 15 of #ThatsMyJam! Orange, Guava, & Lime, with Urban Multilingualism You can listen to us get enthusiastic about the hundreds of languages many cities are host to that don't show up on official records here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 15/12/2025

Did you know you can buy a membership to our Patreon to give to someone else? Makes a great last-minute gift for you or someone else who's enthusiastic about linguistics! www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 15/12/2025

Day 14 of #ThatsMyJam! Mango & Ginger, with A hand-y guide to gesture You can listen to us get enthusiastic about Lauren’s new book, Gesture: A Slim Guide from Oxford University Press here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 14/12/2025

Day 13 of #ThatsMyJam! Apricot with Honey, with The history of the history of Indo-European - Interview with Danny Bate You can listen to us get enthusiastic about the process of figuring out Proto-Indo-European with @dannybate.bsky.social here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 13/12/2025

Day 12 of #ThatsMyJam! Raspberry Redcurrant, with Word order, we love You can listen to us get enthusiastic about how languages put words in a particular order here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 13/12/2025

Day 11 of #ThatsMyJam! Pineapple, Rum, & Vanilla, with A hundred reasons to be enthusiastic about linguistics You can listen to us get enthusiastic about 100 of our favourite fun facts about linguistics here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 11/12/2025

Day 10 of #ThatsMyJam! Blueberry & Lychee with Rose, with No such thing as the oldest language You can listen to us get enthusiastic about what people mean when we talk about a language as being old here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 10/12/2025

Day 9 of #ThatsMyJam! Vanilla Caramel, with Kids these days aren’t ruining language You can listen to us explore how far back we can trace complaints about the language of Kids These Days, and celebrate linguistic innovation while it’s happening, here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 09/12/2025

Day 8 of #ThatsMyJam! White Nectarine, Peach, & Lemon Verbena, with What If Linguistics - Absurd Hypothetical Questions with Randall Munroe of xkcd You can listen to us get enthusiastic about absurd hypothetical linguistic questions with guest @xkcd.com here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 08/12/2025

Day 7 of #ThatsMyJam! Coffee Caramel, with The linguistic map is not the linguistic territory You can listen to us get enthusiastic about the complications that come with trying to map languages and dialects here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 07/12/2025

Day 6 of #ThatsMyJam! Apricot & Lavender, with Translating the untranslatable You can listen to us get enthusiastic about how we translate different kinds of meaning here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 06/12/2025

Listen to the bonus episode a patron just called "one of the most delightfully weird topics Lingthusiasm has ever covered"

Carolynn T - 19hr ago
I think this is one of the most delightfully weird topics Lingthusiasm has ever covered. I can understand why people are so fascinated by this manuscript. Even if it is gibberish, it had to have been FOR something, right? But what??

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 06/12/2025

Day 5 of #ThatsMyJam! Apple, Caramel & Cinnamon, with Word Magic You can listen to us get enthusiastic about how the word magic systems are set up differently in three recent fantasy books we like here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 05/12/2025

Day 4 of #ThatsMyJam! Cherry & Violet, with Colour words around the world and inside your brain You can listen to us get enthusiastic about what linguistic typology and psycholinguistics can tell us about colour words here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 04/12/2025

Day 3 of #ThatsMyJam! Plum, Peach, & Anise, with Tea and skyscrapers - When words get borrowed across languages You can listen to us get enthusiastic about borrowing and loanwords here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 03/12/2025

Day 2 of #ThatsMyJam! Fig & Cardamom, with Why do we gesture when we talk? You can watch us get enthusiastic about gesture here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8dH... And listen here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 02/12/2025

Day 1 of #ThatsMyJam! Blueberry & Maple Syrup, with Speaking Canadian and Australian English in a British-American binary You can listen to us get enthusiastic about the relationship between the different varieties of English here: soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 26/11/2025

Happy World Linguistics Day! Celebratory days take off when groups of people decide to make them happen so... let's see how many different locations we can get world linguistics day wishes from this year!

Green background with three white globes showing different aspects of earth (top to bottom Asia/Oceania, North and South America, and Africa and Europe). Around each globe are the words 'Happy World Linguistics Day! November 26th'.

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 24/11/2025

Throwback to launching our very first merch this time in 2017 (!!) Silky scarves with characters from the International Phonetic Alphabet on them! Originally only in red, navy, and olive these scarves became so popular we later expanded to other colours and subfields lingthusiasm.redbubble.com

A red silky scarf with white IPA characters randomly arranged in lines on it, semi-rumpled next to a latte on a wooden table.

Three scarves with IPA characters on them, white symbols on red, navy, and olive grounds.

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Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 21/11/2025

Just found out we've made this list of "real, credentialed experts thinking outside the ivory tower and making occasionally opaque topics like history, philosophy & science accessible and engaging for the general public" from @ceaubin.com on @pocketcasts.com! blog.pocketcasts.com/2025/09/03/d...

Lingthusiasm (hosted by Dr. Lauren Gawne & Gretchen McCulloch)
If you’re like me, you find words fascinating. If you’re not like me, this podcast will convince you that they’re fascinating. Every week, Lauren and Gretchen do deep-dives into the origins and thought processes behind language that always leave me feeling like I really learned something new. Highly recommend the episodes on swearing and whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich.

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