The Vocal Fries

Send us a textCarrie and Megan talk about the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year.TACOSupport the showContact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us a textCarrie 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 @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us a textCarrie and Megan talk about Makaton, an artificial sign-based system, particularly Sara Novič's article about it.Support the showContact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us a textCarrie and Megan talk about random words that are scary or scary-adjacent.facsismeldritchghostvampireSupport the showContact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us a textWe 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 @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us a textCarrie 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 @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Megan C. Reynolds, Dwell editor and author of Like: A History of the World’s Most Hated (and Misunderstood) Word, joins to trace 'like' from 1600s records to today. She explains quotative uses, hedging and approximation. They tackle gendered criticism, prescriptive policing of speech, and why the backlash says more about power than intelligence.

Send us a textCarrie 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 @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us a textWe 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 @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us a textCarrie 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 @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on