Lauren Gawne

Gesture a Slim Guide is available with a 30% discount code (AUFLY30) on the global.oup.com/academic website - for the hardcover (and it looks like it works for the very cute softcover too) global.oup.com/academic/pro...

At a meta process level, I'm particularly proud of how seamlessly this episode blends some classic lingcomm fare (the etymology of werewolf!) with stuff that to our knowledge has NEVER been given a general audience explanation before, there isn't even a Wikipedia article or blog post about impostors

Lauren, every year: you know we don't do Halloween in Australia right Also @superlinguo.bsky.social: so we should totally do an October episode about various kinds of linguistics monsters!!!

This month's bonus episode is about the most deeply irrelevant pitch emails in our inbox - and make them about linguistics anyway! Help us keep the show running and get access to over 110 bonus episodes by becoming a patron:

Vampires, werewolves, witches, ghosts, zombies, imposters, and frankenstein have something in common: they're all possessed by the spirit of linguistics! In this episode we get enthusiastic about various kinds of linguistic monsters 🧟‍♀️🧛🏻‍♀️👻🐺🦇

If you do this, you might win a copy of one of my books + some Words Unravelled merch!

Announcing the Linguistic Zine Challenge! Make or share a linguistics zine and tell us about it by the end of November, and you could win prizes! (oooh, prizes~~) Thread, or here's a link for the blog fans: lingthusiasm.com/post/8299478...

Lauren is making dignified announcement posts but I just wrote a whole dang thread on the official account so on here it's just gonna be zines zines zines chanting for a while

Either way, tell us about your zine-making and/or zine-sharing experience in this lil webform We're planning a special bonus Lingthusiasm episode with your stories, and hopefully some new zines up on the website as well! And yes, you can enter both ways! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Another way to enter is to make your own linguistics-y zine! - Your personal language experience - Something you've learned about linguistics from us, from a Wikipedia rabbit hole, from other lingcomm creators... We suggest this format if you're new to zines! lingthusiasm.com/post/8287575...

One way to enter is to share an existing linguistics-y zine! - Give 'em out at picnics, conferences - Take-a-zine folder in a busy corridor - Pop a zine in the mail - Colour-in zines with a linguistics club - Add to a free zine shelf or little free library Or something else! Some zines to print:

If you've ever wanted to think more about language, my podcast @lingthusiasm.com with @gretchenmcculloch.com has almost 10 years of monthly episodes, all originally researched and made by our little team. We make fun episodes about 40 minutes on a wide variety of topics, no linguistics necessary!

Possibly the silliest bonus episode we've ever done, in which we mine the highlights from several years of keeping an inbox folder titled "Worst Pitches" ...and challenge ourselves to still find a linguistics tie-in! (actual product names redacted to keep it in the spirit of fun)

We know you're here for linguistics, but perhaps you'd also be interested in some tax advice? Or some bridal lingerie? Or some... lithium mining technology? In this bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the most deeply irrelevant pitch emails in our inbox - and make them about linguistics anyway!

This month’s @lingthusiasm.com zine is for everyone, not just the linguistics enthusiasts. We’ve put together a mini-zine about how to fold mini-zines. We always say “feel free to share,” but we extra-super mean it this time. lingthusiasm.com/post/8287575...

It's "advice to grad students" season! Here's a post I wrote several geological epochs ago, in 2019. My advice gets harder and harder to follow every year (even for me). But I think that means it gets better and better? kensycooperrider.com/blog/advice-...

From PARADISEC: 150 cassette tapes caked in dirt were painstakingly cleaned, digitised and salvaged. A real emotional rollercoaster featuring a very patient human and a robot hero: www.paradisec.org.au/blog/2026/08...

Narratives about smaller languages often focus on the death side, but there's less on why this happens and how communities are fighting back In this episode we get enthusiastic with @sophiasgaler.bsky.social about her new book, How to Kill a Language soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

A real challenge of interdisciplinary work is being late for every meeting because I forget that walking across campus takes 10 minutes

I've become so adept at waiting for bad grants news, it didn't fully occur to me that it might be good news? Still processing that it's 5th ARC lucky. So grateful to @arc-tracker.bsky.social as I have been every other time.

I'm one of 1500 people currently unable to do any work today 🙃 That's 6000 hours of productivity wasted so far!

Look, this is extremely on brand for me, but I don't have any answers about flexible vegetarianism or calling yourself bi (but yay! go for it on either of those!), but I'm in this episode talking about inclusive 'we' and evidentiality.

Very grateful to have a cohost like @gretchenmcculloch.com who just accepts that she'll occasionally wake up to all caps text messages from me.

Hey bluesky, I'm looking for some brainstorming help! So, mine and @superlinguo.bsky.social's 10th anniversary of making @lingthusiasm.com is coming up in November, and I'm trying to figure out some fun things to do for it, especially things that could get more people enthusiastic about linguistics

Talk, talked. Walk, walked. Go...went? In this episode we get enthusiastic about the many ways that languages are irregular in their patterns! soundcloud.com/lingthusiasm...

Meat clarinet.

Poor Claire didn't realise the fonts didn't download when she grabbed these digital stills for the Meat Clarinet cursed zine and now it looks even more like a bad internet shitpost. This is extra funny because @gretchenmcculloch.com was (rightly) proud of her font selection for this cursed zine.

New data from Google on emoji use frequency, and 😭 is the new number one: jenniferdaniel.substack.com/p/why-drowne... (@jenniferdaniel.bsky.social's whole blog is always great)

If you're wishing you could go back to school for linguistics, here's your annual reminder that Crash Course Linguistics @thecrashcourse.bsky.social exists! I worked on it with linguists @superlinguo.bsky.social and @jessgrieser.com, host Taylor Behnke, @complexly.org and @thoughtcafe.bsky.social!

"language loss is not inevitable" A great @aunz.theconversation.com article from @geraldroche.bsky.social about @sophiasgaler.bsky.social's fabulous book How to Kill a Language & the politics of language oppression: theconversation.com/languages-ar...

I made zines about the La Trobe linguistics program for our Open Day! They were cute and fun and a useful info delivery mechanism. I share the zine and reflections on this mini project on the Superlinguo blog: www.superlinguo.com/post/8245087...

For transparency, an exhaustive list of the ways in which Lingthusiasm has used anything related to LLMs/AI/etc, since I guess that's a thing we need in this era: (Spoiler: it is not a long list, and we are not seeking ways to add to it.)

Just to be clear @gretchenmcculloch.com wrote this post. And commissioned this art. I am but a long-suffering and benevolent collaborator and sometimes you just gotta get out of someone's way and let them see their vision through.

Please help me win a debate with @superlinguo.bsky.social which is that people will love our new body horror linguistics merch

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

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...

Can we teach dogs to express their needs better by pressing buttons? How about bonobos? What have we learned from the first-ever recording of a sperm whale birth? In this episode we get enthusiastic about how people use technology to enhance our communication with these three animals!

He just like me fr fr

Ahead of #WorldEmojiDay tomorrow you can see the new emojis coming to you with Unicode 18.0 later this year! If some of these look familiar to you already, @jenniferdaniel.bsky.social has the lowdown on the @unicode.org blog! blog.unicode.org/2026/07/why-...

Remembering Desmond Morris (and, the only time anyone has a good story about obtaining copyright permission for reusing an image in a publication) www.superlinguo.com/post/8219721...

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...