1
00:00:05,160 --> 00:00:07,520
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't become to

2
00:00:07,520 --> 00:00:18,680
Speaker 1: stuff I never told you production of iHeart Radio. And

3
00:00:18,720 --> 00:00:21,520
Speaker 1: today we are bringing back a classic episode that we

4
00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:24,639
Speaker 1: did with the author of a Word Slut, A Feminist

5
00:00:24,640 --> 00:00:27,800
Speaker 1: Guide to taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montil,

6
00:00:28,440 --> 00:00:30,840
Speaker 1: and we're bringing it back based on our recent episode

7
00:00:30,880 --> 00:00:37,400
Speaker 1: about euphemisms about women masturbating, and there were so many

8
00:00:37,400 --> 00:00:42,040
Speaker 1: good ones there were, and it it's kind of become

9
00:00:42,080 --> 00:00:44,880
Speaker 1: a problem for me because now I can't stop thinking

10
00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:47,720
Speaker 1: of other euphemisms. I know, not necessarily about that, but

11
00:00:49,680 --> 00:00:52,680
Speaker 1: it's infiltrated my life, is what I'm trying to say.

12
00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:56,240
Speaker 1: And then I got like a very irresistible urge that

13
00:00:56,280 --> 00:01:03,400
Speaker 1: I'm trying to ignore to explain my orgasm and how

14
00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:06,319
Speaker 1: to or oh, I could do the how to if

15
00:01:06,360 --> 00:01:08,200
Speaker 1: you want it, like you might need to do a

16
00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:11,280
Speaker 1: how to. Oh Oh my gosh, I have I have

17
00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:15,560
Speaker 1: it down. But no, I was more like the crest

18
00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:23,759
Speaker 1: and falls of an orgasms. There is enough and how

19
00:01:23,760 --> 00:01:25,640
Speaker 1: it can last for an hour because I'm sure people

20
00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:28,240
Speaker 1: some people are listening and like there's no where that's possible, like,

21
00:01:28,240 --> 00:01:31,760
Speaker 1: oh it is, but it does have like ups and

22
00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:36,280
Speaker 1: downs it's kind of flowing, yes, but it's continuous. But

23
00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:39,559
Speaker 1: also the highs and the loaves. Anyway, I'm really digging

24
00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:43,480
Speaker 1: my whole much deeper now. But yes, we wanted to

25
00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:45,160
Speaker 1: bring this back because I do think there was a

26
00:01:45,160 --> 00:01:55,240
Speaker 1: conversation we had in here that is related. So please enjoy. Hey,

27
00:01:55,320 --> 00:01:58,360
Speaker 1: this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stepman ever

28
00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:11,120
Speaker 1: told you protection of I Heart Radio. Today, we are

29
00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:15,040
Speaker 1: very excited to be joined by Amanda Montell, who is

30
00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:17,640
Speaker 1: a writer and a linguist, an author of the book

31
00:02:17,880 --> 00:02:21,240
Speaker 1: Words Sluts, a Feminist Guide to taking Back the English Language.

32
00:02:21,360 --> 00:02:24,040
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being with us, Amanda, Oh,

33
00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:27,040
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me. I I've often

34
00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:30,440
Speaker 1: told that I come with a wealth of information that

35
00:02:30,480 --> 00:02:33,480
Speaker 1: people's mom's never told them, so I thought this would

36
00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:37,160
Speaker 1: be a perfect fit. I'm thrilled to be here. I mean,

37
00:02:37,200 --> 00:02:38,760
Speaker 1: to be fair, In your book, you do talk to

38
00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:41,960
Speaker 1: moms about their outdated language, so that's kind of like

39
00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:46,240
Speaker 1: even better, you tell moms what they don't know. Yeah, yeah,

40
00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:50,799
Speaker 1: it's true. I um I found that moms really enjoy

41
00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:54,600
Speaker 1: words slut. I think the phrase word slut is you know,

42
00:02:54,720 --> 00:02:57,800
Speaker 1: it's scandalous but it's not too scandalous for a mom.

43
00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:00,720
Speaker 1: You know. It's a juxtaposition of a sort of like

44
00:03:01,360 --> 00:03:04,760
Speaker 1: nerdy word, which is word, and then an asy word,

45
00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:06,680
Speaker 1: which is slut. But you put them together and it's

46
00:03:06,720 --> 00:03:10,920
Speaker 1: sort of the crown nut of of an expletive that

47
00:03:11,040 --> 00:03:13,720
Speaker 1: mom seemed to be okay with, which is good because really,

48
00:03:13,760 --> 00:03:17,040
Speaker 1: this is a book about feminist socio linguistics that people

49
00:03:17,080 --> 00:03:20,120
Speaker 1: of of all of all genders and all ages, especially

50
00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:24,160
Speaker 1: those in their middle age, probably need. So first of all,

51
00:03:24,160 --> 00:03:26,079
Speaker 1: I'll give you a point for just just saying crow

52
00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:29,960
Speaker 1: nut in any kind of analogy, So good job. Oh well, anyone,

53
00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:33,480
Speaker 1: anyone who knows who knows that I am a portmanteau

54
00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:39,200
Speaker 1: slot portmanteau, portmanteau being a hybrid of of two different

55
00:03:39,200 --> 00:03:44,000
Speaker 1: words to create a new one, like brunch, frenemy, angry, affluenza,

56
00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:48,040
Speaker 1: man splain. There are a great many portmanteaus that the

57
00:03:48,080 --> 00:03:50,720
Speaker 1: feminist movement has come up with in order to name

58
00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:56,320
Speaker 1: previously unspoken experiences like man splain her story. Frat triarchy

59
00:03:56,480 --> 00:03:59,840
Speaker 1: is a fun one. Um, so that's one from Oh yeah,

60
00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:03,320
Speaker 1: A triarchy is what some social scientists have used to

61
00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:07,120
Speaker 1: describe the setup of our contemporary culture, which is run

62
00:04:07,520 --> 00:04:11,120
Speaker 1: less by the fathers and more by networks of the brothers.

63
00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:15,120
Speaker 1: So you know, uh, an example would be, you know,

64
00:04:15,200 --> 00:04:18,520
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and his bus bros. And that access Hollywood

65
00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:21,680
Speaker 1: recording would be a perfect example of frat triarchy, you know,

66
00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:25,680
Speaker 1: bros engaging in locker room banter in order to oppressed women.

67
00:04:25,720 --> 00:04:28,000
Speaker 1: We're really getting into this quickly. All I said, all

68
00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:35,640
Speaker 1: I said was grownut and here we are. Look. Yeah, yeah, anyway,

69
00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:37,720
Speaker 1: that is all to say that I love a portmanteau

70
00:04:37,960 --> 00:04:43,640
Speaker 1: even more than a pun. Then we have a battle.

71
00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:49,240
Speaker 1: Now she loves she's a queen of puns. Yes, I'm

72
00:04:49,279 --> 00:04:52,160
Speaker 1: a I'm a big language nerd. Listeners of this show. No,

73
00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:56,520
Speaker 1: so I'm very very excited to have this conversation. Um,

74
00:04:56,760 --> 00:04:59,479
Speaker 1: love the title and congrats on writing a book. Yes,

75
00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:05,039
Speaker 1: I know that's no easy thing. So oh that that's

76
00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:07,279
Speaker 1: that's very kind of you. Yeah, that was that was

77
00:05:07,360 --> 00:05:10,159
Speaker 1: the dream all along, you know. And um, the fact

78
00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:12,880
Speaker 1: that I got to marry my two loves, that being

79
00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:16,920
Speaker 1: linguistics the science of language and creative writing the art

80
00:05:16,920 --> 00:05:19,960
Speaker 1: of it. Um, that was just you know, that was

81
00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:22,200
Speaker 1: the cherry on top because my dream had always been

82
00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:25,719
Speaker 1: to write nonfiction. UM, and I I never could have

83
00:05:25,800 --> 00:05:30,320
Speaker 1: predicted that this sort of um useless, nerdy undergraduate degree

84
00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:33,360
Speaker 1: that I got would would help me in any sort

85
00:05:33,400 --> 00:05:37,040
Speaker 1: of fruitful way. UM. But I'm I'm thrilled that I

86
00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:39,400
Speaker 1: was able to write about this stuff that I love

87
00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:41,760
Speaker 1: so much and talk about in my everyday life and

88
00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:44,520
Speaker 1: bring it to a general audience of people who might

89
00:05:44,560 --> 00:05:47,359
Speaker 1: not even know what linguistics is. So that's been awesome,

90
00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:51,480
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, and it was. It was wonderful to read.

91
00:05:51,480 --> 00:05:56,960
Speaker 1: Its super fun, very entertaining. Definitely listeners check it out. UM,

92
00:05:57,080 --> 00:05:59,599
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and

93
00:05:59,640 --> 00:06:04,360
Speaker 1: about out the inspiration behind this more than just getting

94
00:06:04,360 --> 00:06:09,160
Speaker 1: to marry the things that you Yeah, absolutely so. UM.

95
00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:13,839
Speaker 1: I grew up a total language nerd, hardcore. I was

96
00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:16,880
Speaker 1: obsessed with what I would later learn was a field

97
00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:21,799
Speaker 1: called socio linguistics UM, which is where language and sociology

98
00:06:21,839 --> 00:06:25,400
Speaker 1: and culture intersect. You know. I was always so fascinated

99
00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:28,800
Speaker 1: by the way that UM people spoke and how it

100
00:06:28,839 --> 00:06:31,240
Speaker 1: could inform our perceptions of them, and the way that

101
00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:33,800
Speaker 1: I spoke and the way that it informed other people's

102
00:06:33,839 --> 00:06:37,239
Speaker 1: perceptions of me. You know why was it that Um,

103
00:06:37,400 --> 00:06:41,599
Speaker 1: when I, as sort of a small woman, would would

104
00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:46,080
Speaker 1: curse or maybe even use um ten dollar words, UM,

105
00:06:46,120 --> 00:06:50,240
Speaker 1: people would be sort of surprised or scandalized, whereas when

106
00:06:50,360 --> 00:06:53,480
Speaker 1: my male colleagues would do so, they didn't get the

107
00:06:53,520 --> 00:06:57,360
Speaker 1: same reaction. And and then, you know, I was always

108
00:06:57,600 --> 00:07:01,760
Speaker 1: just obsessed with the thesaurus. I just loved big old words,

109
00:07:01,839 --> 00:07:05,320
Speaker 1: and I loved you know, the the swish and thwack

110
00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:08,640
Speaker 1: of different you know sounds. And I would later learn

111
00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:11,760
Speaker 1: that that stuff was called phonetics and phonology. UM. But

112
00:07:11,880 --> 00:07:15,200
Speaker 1: I I, yeah, I was obsessed with foreign languages and dialects.

113
00:07:15,200 --> 00:07:19,040
Speaker 1: And again how um, speaking of foreign language or or

114
00:07:19,160 --> 00:07:23,040
Speaker 1: having a certain accent or dialect feature could change the

115
00:07:23,080 --> 00:07:25,880
Speaker 1: way that a person saw you. So then when I

116
00:07:25,920 --> 00:07:28,400
Speaker 1: got to college and signed up for my first linguistics

117
00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:30,720
Speaker 1: one on one class, having no idea what the field was,

118
00:07:30,960 --> 00:07:33,880
Speaker 1: and learned there was this whole you know, small but

119
00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:39,680
Speaker 1: mighty um group of people studying formally um these subjects.

120
00:07:39,800 --> 00:07:44,520
Speaker 1: I I was so smitten. And the gender and language

121
00:07:44,520 --> 00:07:47,880
Speaker 1: classes that I took really inspired me and like lit

122
00:07:47,880 --> 00:07:51,920
Speaker 1: a fire, um more than anything else, because they they

123
00:07:52,080 --> 00:07:57,920
Speaker 1: highlighted these hidden gender biases and stereotypes um, that we

124
00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:02,720
Speaker 1: all grow up using in our everyday language. UM. And

125
00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:05,760
Speaker 1: they're they're they're all over the way that we speak,

126
00:08:05,760 --> 00:08:07,960
Speaker 1: not only in English, but in other languages, to like

127
00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:11,800
Speaker 1: languages with grammatical gender um, where gender is literally built

128
00:08:11,840 --> 00:08:15,320
Speaker 1: into the grammatical system. UM. We don't have that in English, UM,

129
00:08:15,320 --> 00:08:17,760
Speaker 1: other than you know, our third singular pronouns he and she,

130
00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:20,920
Speaker 1: which you know, there's a reason why are our gender

131
00:08:21,040 --> 00:08:24,360
Speaker 1: third singular pronouns have become such a topic of contention

132
00:08:24,440 --> 00:08:28,520
Speaker 1: in in our language because they are really the only

133
00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:31,920
Speaker 1: um unit of grammar that we have in English that

134
00:08:32,080 --> 00:08:35,880
Speaker 1: is gendered. UM. And so that's you know, the little

135
00:08:35,920 --> 00:08:40,040
Speaker 1: category of language that's become sort of politicized. But yeah,

136
00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:43,800
Speaker 1: I was. I was so fascinated um and sort of horrified,

137
00:08:43,840 --> 00:08:47,480
Speaker 1: but also inspired um to learn about all the ways

138
00:08:47,520 --> 00:08:52,440
Speaker 1: that gender and gender stereotypes are lurking beneath the surface

139
00:08:52,520 --> 00:08:55,920
Speaker 1: of our language. Everything from you know, how we use

140
00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:59,520
Speaker 1: gendered insults and how there's such a such a more

141
00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:03,559
Speaker 1: robe bust wealth of of insults for women or referencing

142
00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:06,959
Speaker 1: femininity in English than there are for men, to the

143
00:09:07,120 --> 00:09:11,520
Speaker 1: ways that we criticize and perceive women's voices UM, whether

144
00:09:11,559 --> 00:09:15,120
Speaker 1: it's you know, using a certain feature like up talk UM,

145
00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:17,720
Speaker 1: where you end a declarative sentence in the upward intonation

146
00:09:17,760 --> 00:09:20,679
Speaker 1: of a question, or vocal fry, which is a vocal

147
00:09:20,760 --> 00:09:23,480
Speaker 1: quality where your larynx are very relaxed that sounds like this.

148
00:09:23,640 --> 00:09:26,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure as a as podcast hosts here

149
00:09:26,720 --> 00:09:31,000
Speaker 1: no stranger to criticisms of your voices. UM. And it

150
00:09:31,080 --> 00:09:34,800
Speaker 1: was really cool to learn about how so many judgments

151
00:09:34,840 --> 00:09:36,960
Speaker 1: not only of women's speech, but of the speech of

152
00:09:37,040 --> 00:09:41,320
Speaker 1: so many marginalized communities UM, have so little to do

153
00:09:41,480 --> 00:09:43,679
Speaker 1: with the speech itself at the end of the day,

154
00:09:43,760 --> 00:09:47,080
Speaker 1: and very much to do with our preconceived notions of

155
00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:50,640
Speaker 1: those speakers. UM. And just you know, the the idea

156
00:09:50,760 --> 00:09:54,480
Speaker 1: of of male defaultness in our in our culture and

157
00:09:54,559 --> 00:09:57,400
Speaker 1: in our language, and how the way that men UM,

158
00:09:57,440 --> 00:10:01,480
Speaker 1: specifically you know, middle aged whites great cis gender men

159
00:10:01,520 --> 00:10:03,960
Speaker 1: the way that they use language is UM what we

160
00:10:04,160 --> 00:10:08,720
Speaker 1: default consider prestigious and normal in our culture. UM. Even

161
00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:12,319
Speaker 1: though UH linguists have found time and time again that

162
00:10:12,720 --> 00:10:18,480
Speaker 1: young women and communities of color are our languages linguistic innovators, UM,

163
00:10:18,480 --> 00:10:21,280
Speaker 1: because these are the groups that use language as a

164
00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:23,959
Speaker 1: form of power and a culture that doesn't give them

165
00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:26,360
Speaker 1: a lot of other ways to do that. Um. The

166
00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:29,160
Speaker 1: other example of male defaultness and speech that I that

167
00:10:29,200 --> 00:10:31,400
Speaker 1: I like to give because it's sort of like it

168
00:10:31,760 --> 00:10:34,120
Speaker 1: tends to shock people, as it shocked me when I

169
00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:36,400
Speaker 1: first thought about it, was just the way that we

170
00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:41,360
Speaker 1: describe sex, like as penetration. You know that that word

171
00:10:41,559 --> 00:10:46,360
Speaker 1: places you know, penises as the protagonists and the narrators

172
00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:48,719
Speaker 1: of sex. You know, the opposite might be something like

173
00:10:49,120 --> 00:10:52,520
Speaker 1: envelopment or enclosure, or if you want to approach it

174
00:10:52,559 --> 00:10:55,679
Speaker 1: from a sling angle, something like she thing. And I

175
00:10:55,800 --> 00:10:59,720
Speaker 1: was just like, that is wild. How how word choice

176
00:11:00,240 --> 00:11:03,400
Speaker 1: um with regard to gender and so many other identities.

177
00:11:03,960 --> 00:11:05,840
Speaker 1: It's something that we don't even think about because we

178
00:11:05,880 --> 00:11:10,800
Speaker 1: grow up using language so organically. UM. And so you know,

179
00:11:10,920 --> 00:11:14,439
Speaker 1: the the opportunity to bring UM some of these empirical

180
00:11:14,480 --> 00:11:17,560
Speaker 1: studies that are kind of inaccessible and only really read

181
00:11:17,600 --> 00:11:20,920
Speaker 1: by linguistic students UM to a general audience was really

182
00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:24,520
Speaker 1: exciting to me. UM. But yeah, I guess you asked

183
00:11:24,760 --> 00:11:27,000
Speaker 1: me to talk about myself and then I just tended

184
00:11:27,040 --> 00:11:32,360
Speaker 1: you talking about linguistics. But but but yeah, I am

185
00:11:32,520 --> 00:11:35,520
Speaker 1: I am I'm a writer and I always dreamt of

186
00:11:35,559 --> 00:11:39,240
Speaker 1: being a writer. Um, and I I'm writing my second

187
00:11:39,280 --> 00:11:42,160
Speaker 1: book now, which is about the language of cults, from

188
00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:48,000
Speaker 1: scientology to soul cycle um, and how the how these groups,

189
00:11:48,040 --> 00:11:50,400
Speaker 1: you know, the wide spectrum of groups that the word

190
00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:53,640
Speaker 1: cult can be applied to in contemporary culture, from those

191
00:11:53,679 --> 00:11:57,960
Speaker 1: as a notorious and destructive as jonestown to those as um,

192
00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:02,560
Speaker 1: you know, seemingly innocuous and and constructive as something like

193
00:12:02,600 --> 00:12:07,040
Speaker 1: peloton um. How these groups use language to do things

194
00:12:07,120 --> 00:12:09,720
Speaker 1: that occult or a cult following would need to do,

195
00:12:09,840 --> 00:12:13,760
Speaker 1: like create community and solidarity and still ideology creating us

196
00:12:13,880 --> 00:12:17,120
Speaker 1: versus them, mentality, et cetera. So I guess the the

197
00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:19,960
Speaker 1: general theme with me is that I'm I'm really interested

198
00:12:20,040 --> 00:12:24,280
Speaker 1: in in language and culture and um, so that's that's

199
00:12:24,280 --> 00:12:25,839
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. But I want to write about all

200
00:12:25,920 --> 00:12:32,600
Speaker 1: kinds of things over the course of my career. So yeah,

201
00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:35,120
Speaker 1: you should. Yes, Yes, So that was a great answer,

202
00:12:35,160 --> 00:12:36,720
Speaker 1: And there's so much to impact there and I think

203
00:12:36,720 --> 00:12:52,280
Speaker 1: we will. But I want to start with a sample,

204
00:12:52,559 --> 00:12:56,440
Speaker 1: super easy question. Can you give us a brief rundown

205
00:12:56,520 --> 00:12:59,400
Speaker 1: on the history of the English language and perhaps particularly

206
00:12:59,400 --> 00:13:04,240
Speaker 1: when it comes to this question of is it sexist,

207
00:13:04,559 --> 00:13:06,800
Speaker 1: because you talked about that a little bit in the book,

208
00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:11,400
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, So you know, the English language has

209
00:13:11,840 --> 00:13:16,640
Speaker 1: such a storied past um as as many languages do.

210
00:13:16,880 --> 00:13:19,120
Speaker 1: But um. You know, and this is the other fun

211
00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:21,800
Speaker 1: thing about social linguistics is that you get to track

212
00:13:21,920 --> 00:13:27,040
Speaker 1: how things like wars and epidemics actually to to you know,

213
00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:30,040
Speaker 1: be talking book all about it. Um can inform how

214
00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:33,680
Speaker 1: languages evolve. So let me think of how I wanna

215
00:13:33,960 --> 00:13:36,720
Speaker 1: tell this story in a succinct manner. So basically we

216
00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:39,719
Speaker 1: can start back in the fifth century a D. This

217
00:13:39,800 --> 00:13:43,640
Speaker 1: was long ago, folks Um. The fifth century a D.

218
00:13:43,840 --> 00:13:48,400
Speaker 1: That's when this trio of Germanic tribes from Scandinavia showed

219
00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:51,760
Speaker 1: up in the British aisles unannounced. Um. And you know,

220
00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:54,560
Speaker 1: we don't know if it was peaceful or violent, but

221
00:13:54,679 --> 00:13:57,960
Speaker 1: you know, probably violent. And um. Those tribes spoke this

222
00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:02,040
Speaker 1: language called English. Um. I actually don't quite remember how

223
00:14:02,040 --> 00:14:03,880
Speaker 1: to pronounce the name of the language that they spoke,

224
00:14:03,880 --> 00:14:06,800
Speaker 1: but it sounded like Lord of the Rings language. Um.

225
00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:10,640
Speaker 1: And so this lingo, along with some of the North

226
00:14:10,679 --> 00:14:14,800
Speaker 1: Germanic languages spoken by Vikings, push Britain's Celtic languages to

227
00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:19,400
Speaker 1: the outskirts of the country UM. And so the product

228
00:14:19,480 --> 00:14:22,880
Speaker 1: of all of these languages intermingling UM is what we

229
00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:26,920
Speaker 1: call Old English UM. And it's totally incomprehensible today, but

230
00:14:27,680 --> 00:14:29,920
Speaker 1: you know, you might have come across some Old English

231
00:14:30,120 --> 00:14:33,680
Speaker 1: UM if you took nerdy language courses in college like

232
00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:37,520
Speaker 1: I did. UM. Anyway, Old English was spoken until precisely

233
00:14:37,560 --> 00:14:40,560
Speaker 1: the year ten sixty six a d. And that's when

234
00:14:40,560 --> 00:14:43,960
Speaker 1: the Duke of Normandy UM, who was from France, this

235
00:14:44,160 --> 00:14:47,960
Speaker 1: terrifying little man came in UM. It came into England

236
00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:50,120
Speaker 1: and murdered a bunch of people and brought with him

237
00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:54,600
Speaker 1: an early form of French UM. And so that happened,

238
00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:56,320
Speaker 1: and it was all very violent. But then what was

239
00:14:56,360 --> 00:14:58,800
Speaker 1: even more violent, speaking of epidemics, was that the Black

240
00:14:58,880 --> 00:15:01,560
Speaker 1: Death swooped in and killed off about a third of

241
00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:05,280
Speaker 1: the population UM. And so by the fourteenth century, UM

242
00:15:05,280 --> 00:15:08,320
Speaker 1: English had become the dominant language of Britain, again not

243
00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:11,160
Speaker 1: not Old French. But at this point English had been

244
00:15:11,240 --> 00:15:14,480
Speaker 1: influenced so heavily by Old French UM that it gave

245
00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:17,120
Speaker 1: us a new form, which was Middle English. And then

246
00:15:17,160 --> 00:15:19,960
Speaker 1: a few centuries go by and a bunch of stuff happens,

247
00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:24,760
Speaker 1: like the Great vowel Shift. UM. And by the fifteen hundreds,

248
00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:28,240
Speaker 1: the traveled enabled British have started mingling with you know,

249
00:15:28,360 --> 00:15:30,640
Speaker 1: a ton of different people around the world, and so

250
00:15:30,720 --> 00:15:33,680
Speaker 1: globalization was starting to happen a little bit. The European

251
00:15:33,760 --> 00:15:36,520
Speaker 1: Renaissance was starting to happen a little bit, and UM

252
00:15:36,520 --> 00:15:40,560
Speaker 1: the printing press was invented, which was really important for

253
00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:45,640
Speaker 1: UM language standardization. So all of this starts to happen.

254
00:15:45,760 --> 00:15:49,000
Speaker 1: The first Webster's dictionary was printed. Actually I don't know

255
00:15:49,040 --> 00:15:51,520
Speaker 1: if it was Websters. The first dictionary was printed. It

256
00:15:51,560 --> 00:15:56,360
Speaker 1: had about hundred words. The sixteen hundreds come along. Colonization

257
00:15:56,400 --> 00:16:00,920
Speaker 1: of North America takes place, and that North American English

258
00:16:01,040 --> 00:16:04,440
Speaker 1: UM starts to evolve, and that's influenced by French and

259
00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:08,080
Speaker 1: Spanish and the West African slave trade, UM, and the

260
00:16:08,120 --> 00:16:12,600
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution happens, and then the Internet happens, and UM

261
00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:19,200
Speaker 1: a bunch of happens, and then we have contemporary American English.

262
00:16:19,360 --> 00:16:24,520
Speaker 1: It was a great timeline I like it. Sorry that

263
00:16:24,600 --> 00:16:26,520
Speaker 1: was kind of long winded, but the history of English

264
00:16:26,640 --> 00:16:33,480
Speaker 1: is so dramatic I don't know how to sacctly describe it. Yes, yes,

265
00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:36,320
Speaker 1: that was a very big question, and I appreciate you.

266
00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:43,800
Speaker 1: I think you did a really great job getting that together. Yeah. So,

267
00:16:45,360 --> 00:16:49,520
Speaker 1: going off of that, you kind of discuss, um, how

268
00:16:49,720 --> 00:16:56,080
Speaker 1: the English language isn't necessarily sexist so much as like

269
00:16:56,160 --> 00:17:00,960
Speaker 1: the people in power have used it at serlutely. Yeah.

270
00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:05,639
Speaker 1: So there's nothing inherent about the thousand consonants of English

271
00:17:05,680 --> 00:17:08,919
Speaker 1: that would make it inherently sexist. Um. But you know,

272
00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:12,880
Speaker 1: as the story of the history of English shows culture

273
00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:16,520
Speaker 1: and human beings and how we interact with each other

274
00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:20,600
Speaker 1: and how we colonize and how we standardize really has

275
00:17:20,640 --> 00:17:24,160
Speaker 1: a huge effect on on the way that language moves.

276
00:17:24,280 --> 00:17:27,159
Speaker 1: And so you know, many of the characters in the

277
00:17:27,320 --> 00:17:30,520
Speaker 1: story of the history of English our men, you know,

278
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:33,520
Speaker 1: the army dudes, and the aristocracy, and the merchants and

279
00:17:33,640 --> 00:17:36,760
Speaker 1: labors and the printers um, who you know invented the

280
00:17:37,080 --> 00:17:42,240
Speaker 1: printing press, um, and um started printing standardized English grammar guides, UM,

281
00:17:42,280 --> 00:17:45,320
Speaker 1: the dictionary makers, the industry and technology folks. You know,

282
00:17:45,760 --> 00:17:48,919
Speaker 1: because we live in a society where historically it hasn't

283
00:17:48,960 --> 00:17:53,080
Speaker 1: been as easy for women and other marginalized folks to

284
00:17:53,080 --> 00:17:57,480
Speaker 1: to do cool things from a high position of power. Um.

285
00:17:57,520 --> 00:18:00,719
Speaker 1: It's it's been hard for them to you define the

286
00:18:00,760 --> 00:18:04,480
Speaker 1: world from the top down. Um. But you know, as

287
00:18:04,520 --> 00:18:08,320
Speaker 1: it turns out, women do have a huge, huge, enormous

288
00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:11,440
Speaker 1: impact on how language evolves from the bottom up, which

289
00:18:11,520 --> 00:18:14,240
Speaker 1: is its own, um sort of even more important kind

290
00:18:14,280 --> 00:18:17,040
Speaker 1: of power. Um. And that's what the rest of words

291
00:18:17,080 --> 00:18:24,080
Speaker 1: let us about, really, right, yeah, um so sort of

292
00:18:24,080 --> 00:18:26,320
Speaker 1: really I know you talk about and we've talked about

293
00:18:26,320 --> 00:18:28,400
Speaker 1: this in an episode we did in the past, of

294
00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:32,720
Speaker 1: this sort of devolving of words like if you look

295
00:18:32,760 --> 00:18:37,959
Speaker 1: at um like master and mistress for example. UM, so

296
00:18:38,080 --> 00:18:43,520
Speaker 1: can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely so. Um.

297
00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:47,800
Speaker 1: In English, we have these two forms of semantic change

298
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:53,600
Speaker 1: called pejuration and amelioration. And pejoration describes a process of

299
00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:56,800
Speaker 1: how words over time, where a word that starts out

300
00:18:56,800 --> 00:18:59,880
Speaker 1: with a neutral or positive meaning eventually devolves too means

301
00:19:00,160 --> 00:19:06,520
Speaker 1: thing negative, and amelioration is the opposite process. So, sadly,

302
00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:10,280
Speaker 1: nearly every word the English language offers to describe a

303
00:19:10,359 --> 00:19:14,520
Speaker 1: woman has at some point during its lifespan been colored

304
00:19:14,720 --> 00:19:18,840
Speaker 1: some shade of obscene. Um. And there was this linguist

305
00:19:18,960 --> 00:19:22,680
Speaker 1: name Muriel Schultz Um who wrote this nine paper called

306
00:19:22,680 --> 00:19:26,000
Speaker 1: the semantic derogation of woman, and in it she describes

307
00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:29,600
Speaker 1: this process and looks at so many of the words UM,

308
00:19:29,640 --> 00:19:32,760
Speaker 1: for which this process is true. UM. And you know,

309
00:19:32,800 --> 00:19:35,159
Speaker 1: it's no coincidence that she wrote this paper in nineteen

310
00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:38,760
Speaker 1: because you know, the nineteen seventies, with the second wave

311
00:19:38,840 --> 00:19:41,679
Speaker 1: feminist movement, that's when we really saw the dawn of

312
00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:45,200
Speaker 1: the study of feminist socio linguistics. So it is relatively

313
00:19:45,280 --> 00:19:48,959
Speaker 1: new UM, and you know, expanding all the time and

314
00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:52,720
Speaker 1: becoming more intersectional all the time. And when when young

315
00:19:52,800 --> 00:19:57,240
Speaker 1: readers of the book, who who hold a complex intersection

316
00:19:57,280 --> 00:19:59,199
Speaker 1: of identities come to me and they tell me, like,

317
00:19:59,320 --> 00:20:01,320
Speaker 1: I want to write a about linguistics now, it's just

318
00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:04,960
Speaker 1: like makes me so happy because we're really, um, we're

319
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:07,800
Speaker 1: missing a lot of voices in the world of feminist

320
00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:10,000
Speaker 1: social linguistics. And there are a ton of people doing

321
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:12,960
Speaker 1: really important work UM in the field, but not enough

322
00:20:12,960 --> 00:20:16,080
Speaker 1: of them. So that's another conversation. But yeah, I mean,

323
00:20:16,119 --> 00:20:20,840
Speaker 1: we can compare certain minimal pairs of words, like you

324
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:24,400
Speaker 1: talked about master and mistress. You know, these terms come

325
00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:26,960
Speaker 1: to English by way of old French, and and initially

326
00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:30,119
Speaker 1: both of them indicated a person in a position of authority,

327
00:20:30,280 --> 00:20:33,680
Speaker 1: like a male and female heads of household. Um. But

328
00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:37,760
Speaker 1: you know, mistress obviously, as we know, it devolved over

329
00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:41,240
Speaker 1: time to mean, you know, a sexually promiscuous woman with

330
00:20:41,280 --> 00:20:45,840
Speaker 1: whom a married man um for indicates. And meanwhile, master

331
00:20:46,480 --> 00:20:49,199
Speaker 1: um continues to describe a man who's in charge of

332
00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:52,800
Speaker 1: something like a household or an animal, or a person

333
00:20:52,840 --> 00:20:56,159
Speaker 1: who's conquered a difficult skill, like like a chef or

334
00:20:56,200 --> 00:21:01,640
Speaker 1: a karate master. Another example is buddy and sissy UM,

335
00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:04,520
Speaker 1: which you know, used to mean they were just synonyms

336
00:21:04,560 --> 00:21:08,159
Speaker 1: for brother and sister, but of course buddy ameliorated to

337
00:21:08,359 --> 00:21:10,520
Speaker 1: mean you know, a comrade or a pal. You know,

338
00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:14,520
Speaker 1: it has this friendly, cozy connotation, while cissy devolved to

339
00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:17,160
Speaker 1: come to mean you know, sort of a weak, overly

340
00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:21,040
Speaker 1: effeminate man who God forbid reminds you of a woman. Um.

341
00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:24,120
Speaker 1: Sir and madam is another minimal pair. But yeah, you

342
00:21:24,119 --> 00:21:26,000
Speaker 1: you come across a lot of those. But it's really

343
00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:28,639
Speaker 1: interesting because you know, so many of the words that

344
00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:33,160
Speaker 1: we think of as incredibly degrading towards women, like oh God,

345
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:35,480
Speaker 1: and here's where I'm going to have to skirt around

346
00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:39,919
Speaker 1: some of these curse words. So slat actually started out

347
00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:43,760
Speaker 1: as a fairly neutral term. Um. You know, hundreds of

348
00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:46,159
Speaker 1: years ago it was used to describe a sort of

349
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:50,240
Speaker 1: messy or untidy woman, and um, it was sometimes used

350
00:21:50,280 --> 00:21:53,000
Speaker 1: to describe men as well. Um. Chocer at a point

351
00:21:53,040 --> 00:21:57,280
Speaker 1: describes a male character as sluttish, which I find entertaining

352
00:21:57,600 --> 00:22:01,439
Speaker 1: um to describe, you know, this character slovenly nous. Um.

353
00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 1: But what we find with slut, and what we find

354
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:06,760
Speaker 1: with so many terms for women, is that over time

355
00:22:06,840 --> 00:22:10,560
Speaker 1: they they come to mean a sexual slur. That's where

356
00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:14,560
Speaker 1: they end up, and that really reflects the position of

357
00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:17,440
Speaker 1: of women in our culture. Um. You know, when we

358
00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:20,680
Speaker 1: go to insult a woman, we can't help but reduce

359
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:24,120
Speaker 1: her to a sexual object. Um, whether that's by way

360
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:26,520
Speaker 1: of calling her some type of animal or some type

361
00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:30,280
Speaker 1: of edible treat um, or just plain old, you know,

362
00:22:30,359 --> 00:22:34,880
Speaker 1: calling her a prostitute, which in itself is a problematic word. Um.

363
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:38,879
Speaker 1: As you know, sex work is completely legitimate. Um. But yeah,

364
00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:42,680
Speaker 1: so I mean that that was a fascinating thing to discover.

365
00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:46,400
Speaker 1: And then what was also cool was to to learn

366
00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:51,280
Speaker 1: and share the information about reclamation um, because a reclamation

367
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:54,040
Speaker 1: is sometimes you know, a controversial subject too, because you know,

368
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:57,520
Speaker 1: not everybody is going to agree on which words deserve

369
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,320
Speaker 1: to be abolished rather than claimed. And you know, something

370
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:03,959
Speaker 1: that we see in culture is that, um, you know,

371
00:23:04,359 --> 00:23:09,720
Speaker 1: sometimes gendered insults will go out of style as soon

372
00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 1: as the underlying belief in them does. So it's one

373
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 1: of the reasons why you never hear someone, you know,

374
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:20,560
Speaker 1: call a woman an old maid or a spinster in earnest,

375
00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:24,240
Speaker 1: you know, really trying to damage them or disparage them anymore,

376
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 1: because it's no longer completely reprehensible to be a woman

377
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:31,360
Speaker 1: who's over you know, thirty five and unmarried. Um. And

378
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:33,720
Speaker 1: so you know, there were people there were, you know,

379
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 1: feminists who I respect who thought it was you know,

380
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:40,679
Speaker 1: who would not have named their book word slut because

381
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:43,439
Speaker 1: they think that slut is one of those words that

382
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,679
Speaker 1: deserves to just go away entirely because it's problematic to

383
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:50,520
Speaker 1: have a special word for women's promiscuity at all. Um.

384
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:53,200
Speaker 1: And I agree with them there, But you know, I

385
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:56,040
Speaker 1: might be slightly more of an optimist um when I

386
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 1: think about reclamation, because I like to think, you know,

387
00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 1: if if we can only choose to use gendered insults

388
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:10,680
Speaker 1: in positive contexts, so words slut or talking about, you know, sluttiness,

389
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 1: even if it has to do with sex in in

390
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,239
Speaker 1: a positive way, like I had such a slutty night

391
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: last night, it was amazing. But if we can only

392
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 1: use bitch in context of like bad bitch, badass, bitch,

393
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:25,119
Speaker 1: me and my bitches. Um. And by the way, we

394
00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:28,159
Speaker 1: have women in hip hop in nineties hip hop largely

395
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: to thank for the reclamation of the word bitch. Um,

396
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:35,040
Speaker 1: you know, we can almost they almost singlehandedly um or

397
00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: responsible for reclaiming that word. Um. If we can only

398
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:41,920
Speaker 1: use these terms in positive context, then as the next

399
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:46,119
Speaker 1: generation comes up hearing those contexts, then they will no

400
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 1: longer think of a slut or a bitch in a

401
00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 1: negative light. Um. And you know, if we can do that,

402
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:56,200
Speaker 1: and then when we go to insult people, because lord

403
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:59,200
Speaker 1: knows I love to insult people, if when we insult

404
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:03,679
Speaker 1: people we can target their behavior rather than their gender,

405
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 1: then we can be more inclusive, more specific, more incisive.

406
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 1: We can be meaner in fact when we when we

407
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 1: criticize their behavior, because we're actually addressing the thing about

408
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: them that we don't like, rather than just saying like, oh,

409
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:21,119
Speaker 1: you're a bitch, you're a slut, you're a c U

410
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:24,600
Speaker 1: n t um And the history of that word is

411
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 1: also fascinating and it and again did not start out

412
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:31,399
Speaker 1: as a negative thing. Um. But yeah, that's why you know,

413
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:34,920
Speaker 1: the naming the book word slut was sort of this, um,

414
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: the statement of of reclamation and my belief and in

415
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: using words only in in positive context that have so

416
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 1: long been used against us, because you know, a more

417
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:48,719
Speaker 1: equal world is also one where less offense is taken

418
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 1: to language because there's, um, there's nothing disempowering about it,

419
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:58,959
Speaker 1: and language can really um work to empower or disempower

420
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:02,640
Speaker 1: people in a in a truly material way. So that's

421
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: my long winded answer to your question. Perfect. Um. Yeah,

422
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: it's it's funny because I've I've shared this story before

423
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:13,600
Speaker 1: on the show. But yes, as podcasters, we do get

424
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 1: a lot of criticism on our voices and what we say.

425
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 1: And one of my favorites is back before I was

426
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: even a voice, I was just a producer. Um. I

427
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: got a comment that said, I know the producer of

428
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: this show and she's a huge slut, and I think

429
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 1: about that all the time. I'd like to I actually

430
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 1: know me, who are you out of nowhere like he

431
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 1: put out of his way to insult the producer. Um.

432
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:43,880
Speaker 1: But has it anybody ever called angels slot there's that. Well.

433
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 1: I do think it's interesting that um and it and

434
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 1: it highlights some of that that male defaultness again when

435
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:55,679
Speaker 1: we have words like man slut um, which highlights the

436
00:26:55,720 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 1: notion that, you know, someone who's contemptuously promiscuous must be female. Um.

437
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 1: If we have to attack that masculine modifier onto it

438
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 1: um in order for that to apply to men um.

439
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 1: And you know, we see the same thing or similar

440
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:13,400
Speaker 1: thing with with words like man, bag, man, bun, guideliner,

441
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: you know, which which served to imply that objects often

442
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: thought to be frivolous, like makeup and purses, are inherently feminine.

443
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 1: And in a in a former career, I was a

444
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 1: beauty editor, so I can talk about the history of

445
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 1: makeup and and men and how it is not actually

446
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: inherently feminine. But that's another podcast. Um yeah, and how

447
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,239
Speaker 1: you know, and my other sort of pet peeves, and

448
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 1: we all have language pet peeves. But the fun thing

449
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 1: about being a linguists and some something that I try

450
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:44,640
Speaker 1: to communicate is that we're not interested in the way

451
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: that people should talk. We're interested in the way that

452
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:50,480
Speaker 1: people do talk and so um, you know, correcting grammar.

453
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:53,200
Speaker 1: That's something that people sometimes ask me when they hear that.

454
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:55,200
Speaker 1: You know, I've studied linguistics that are like, oh, are

455
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:57,919
Speaker 1: you always correcting people's grammar in your head? And I'm like, no,

456
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 1: just the opposite, you know. I'm not a pedant, I'm

457
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,959
Speaker 1: not a grammarian. I'm I'm interested in the precise opposite,

458
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: you know. I want to know how people really do

459
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: talk in their most natural state and what that says

460
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 1: about their background and their experiences. And so I try

461
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 1: to remain as a non judgmental and as curious as

462
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: possible about language. And I think that in general that's

463
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:24,879
Speaker 1: a that's a really good way to approach it. Um.

464
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: But yeah, I do that said, I do have my

465
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:30,680
Speaker 1: own little pet peeves, and some of them are are when,

466
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:35,159
Speaker 1: you know, when people say things like you know, girl

467
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: boss and she e o and mom preneur. You know,

468
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 1: they sort of like cutesify um terms that are are

469
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 1: not inherently gendered UM, which highlight and perpetuate the notion

470
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: that the words boss and entrepreneur and CEO are sort

471
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:57,240
Speaker 1: of tacitly coded male. Um, even when people call me

472
00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: a girl boss as a compliment, like I just cringe

473
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: because I'm like, what, First of all, I'm not the

474
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: boss of anyone. I literally have no employees. But also

475
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 1: if you're gonna call me that, please don't call me

476
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:14,719
Speaker 1: a girl boss because let's not Let's not perpetuate and

477
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: reflect these stereotypes, shall we, Right, And that's not a

478
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 1: double whammy in itself, because obviously a girl is a

479
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: juvenile to begin with, dominutive. Yeah, not only does it

480
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 1: have to be hey, oh you're something special because you're

481
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: not male, so we have to say you're a female

482
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 1: of swords, but not only that, you're a child, so

483
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 1: you're a girl. So stop. I know. Can you imagine

484
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: calling some six year old man a boy boss. It

485
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: would be so silly. I just wouldn't make sense going

486
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 1: to now, Yeah, I know, give it a try. We

487
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: have some more for you listeners, but first we have

488
00:29:50,560 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: a quick break for word from our sponsor and we're back.

489
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 1: Thank you sponsored. Because, as we've discussed, the media, love

490
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 1: love love love loves to critique female women voices. Um,

491
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 1: how to stop vocal fry, how not to up talk,

492
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: stop saying sorry, stop using emoji, stop using exclamation points,

493
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: and emails, and largely it seems like what it's boiling

494
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: down to is telling women and other marginalized communities to

495
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: to fit into this conform to this male dominated workspace.

496
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 1: So what are some ways that you have found or

497
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: that you think that we can find our own voices

498
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: and own our own voices in those spaces. Yeah, yeah,

499
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, Um, these spaces. I mean, culture in

500
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: general wants women and and folks of other marginalized identities

501
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 1: who don't speak quote unquote standard English, which is of

502
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 1: course the standardized English um that was put in place

503
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: by you know, stuffy old white men. They want they

504
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 1: want everyone else to accommodate to that standard because we

505
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: all grew up thinking that that is proper English. Um,

506
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:22,959
Speaker 1: it's prescriptive grammar. Um, that's the grammar that your English

507
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 1: teacher teaches you. Um. But really there is nothing inherently

508
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 1: better about it. And in fact, attempting to keep language

509
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 1: from moving forward or changing is a feudal effort because

510
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 1: it is going to change, and young women are you know,

511
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 1: going to be the ones to to change it. Um.

512
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 1: And that's what linguists have found time and time again

513
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 1: that young people tend to, you know, be quicker on

514
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: the uptake of linguistic change than older generations. And young

515
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 1: women tend to be about half a generation ahead of

516
00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 1: young men. And so you know, really when it comes

517
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 1: to linguistic innovation, we should be celebrating that. And and

518
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 1: that doesn't only have to do with you know, innovations

519
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: that young women make, but you know, especially with with

520
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:10,239
Speaker 1: everything that's that's going on in our country right now,

521
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: I can't not address how so often African American English

522
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 1: is criticized as being improper English or poorer grammar without acknowledging.

523
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: And this is something that you learn in linguistics, and

524
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:25,320
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for that that it is such a

525
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 1: complex and sophisticated, systematic dialect um that is a product

526
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 1: of Black Americans oppression but also their innovation um. And

527
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: Black Americans grow up learning from an extremely young age

528
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:43,719
Speaker 1: to code switch, so that you know, in in certain

529
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 1: communities they're speaking one dialect and then maybe in an

530
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: office spaces or or white spaces, they're they're learning to

531
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 1: speak another dialect. And that's a form of bilingualism that

532
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: should be celebrated rather than condemned. But you know, I

533
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 1: remember growing up in Baltimore, or you know, my English

534
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 1: teachers in middle school in high school criticizing black students

535
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 1: voices when they weren't in class, when they were in

536
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 1: the hallway um and you know, telling them not to

537
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 1: use this verb tense or or you know that pronunciation

538
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: and um that really perpetuates stereotypes and in an extremely negative,

539
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: profound way, that that does keep people um from power,

540
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 1: and that does promote racism. But yeah, I mean, I

541
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: think you know, when you're talking about owning your voice

542
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 1: in some of these spaces, it is challenging because sometimes

543
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 1: a person's most authentic voice will you know, be a

544
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 1: hindrance to them, even though there's nothing inherently wrong with

545
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:47,840
Speaker 1: their speech. In fact, their speech is probably more sophisticated

546
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:52,480
Speaker 1: and more inventive and more communicative than the speech of

547
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: you know, their bosses. And actually, linguists have an acronym

548
00:33:55,880 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: for the least innovative population of English speakers there, non mobile,

549
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 1: older rural males, and linguists call them norms, which I

550
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:11,239
Speaker 1: just think is fantastic. Um. So you know, when we're

551
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 1: when we're at work or or certainly when you're you know,

552
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 1: running for political office, or when you're you know, vying

553
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: for any sort of position of power, the expectation is

554
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:24,239
Speaker 1: for you to accommodate to the speech of norms. And

555
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 1: you know, in in some workplaces, it's going to be

556
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 1: more acceptable to push back against that. You know, say, oh, hey,

557
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: I read in word slut that UH had vocal fry

558
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 1: and up talk and using like every other word. Um.

559
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:40,879
Speaker 1: These are actually signs of linguistic savvy. And I can

560
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 1: point you to a number of empirical studies that disprove

561
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: these problematic standards that you've always held. UM. But obviously,

562
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: and not every workplace that is that going to be appropriate.

563
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 1: So sometimes what I like to tell people is that

564
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:57,239
Speaker 1: when you get criticisms from a boss or something like that,

565
00:34:57,239 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: that you need to stop using vocal fry or so

566
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: many filler were words or exclamation points in your emails

567
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 1: or you know, whatever it is. UM. You might have

568
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 1: to briefly, you know, temporarily accommodate in order you know,

569
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: not to get fired, in order to keep your job. UM.

570
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 1: But then you can go back to your desk or

571
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: you can go home, not wasting any time second guessing yourself.

572
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: It's really you know, it's almost a form of gas

573
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:25,759
Speaker 1: lighting when someone tells you that there's something wrong with

574
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 1: your speech, even though there's actually something wrong with their standards. Um.

575
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 1: But you can go back to your desk, or go home,

576
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:35,920
Speaker 1: or log off Skype or Zoom or whatever service you're using,

577
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 1: and you can at least not waste any time worrying

578
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:42,799
Speaker 1: that there is something inherently wrong about you, that your

579
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 1: voice is you know, naturally inauthoritative, and that you need

580
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: to change. You know, we all know what we need

581
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:51,839
Speaker 1: to do in those spaces. Temporarily, we need to, you know,

582
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 1: just talk like our bosses for the time being. But

583
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: at least you will have the confident knowledge that your

584
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:03,359
Speaker 1: speech is there for a logical, powerful, provable reason. And

585
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:06,080
Speaker 1: so in you know, a couple of years, a few years,

586
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 1: when you become the boss, you can resist perpetuating those

587
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,720
Speaker 1: standards when you now have young women and other folks

588
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:17,320
Speaker 1: coming up under you. Um, because you know, so many

589
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:19,840
Speaker 1: of the criticisms that I myself have received in the

590
00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: workplace of saying like too much or you know, being

591
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:28,239
Speaker 1: to quote unquote opinionated or allowed or um any of

592
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:30,360
Speaker 1: these other criticisms. Yes, so so much of them have

593
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:33,959
Speaker 1: come from female bosses, and often their criticism is even

594
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,080
Speaker 1: harsher because they figured, you know, I had to do this,

595
00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 1: I had to fight tooth and nail to climb the

596
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 1: corporate ladder. And these are always white women, by the way, um,

597
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 1: you know, the Karen's of the world. They they you know,

598
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:48,839
Speaker 1: they think I had I had to accommodate, I had

599
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: to fight my way up the corporate ladder. So this

600
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 1: is just par for the course, and you need to

601
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 1: do it too, and I'm going to hold you to

602
00:36:54,600 --> 00:37:00,360
Speaker 1: an even stricter standard. Um. Meanwhile, like these these speech

603
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:02,920
Speaker 1: quality is like like and vocal fry and and so

604
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 1: much of the slang that comes from African American and

605
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: English that you know, eventually within a few years ends

606
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: up taking a seat at the table of everyday English. Um.

607
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: These are qualities that everybody ends up using, um in

608
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 1: a in a number of years. It's just that there

609
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 1: are these growing pains because when norms here this language,

610
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 1: they you know, subconsciously feel the grounds of linguistic change

611
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:29,320
Speaker 1: quaking beneath them, you know. And this is a sign

612
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:32,359
Speaker 1: that the that a new generation is rising up and

613
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: coming into power and they don't like that, especially when

614
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:38,240
Speaker 1: those people are people of color or women or both.

615
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:42,359
Speaker 1: So yeah, my my advice is really just to not

616
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: let it get you down, not let these criticisms get

617
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 1: you down, not let them distract you. Remain open minded

618
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,840
Speaker 1: about your speech and non judgmental about your speech, but

619
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:54,919
Speaker 1: also non judgmental of the speech of others who who

620
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:58,839
Speaker 1: aren't like you. And then when you're the boss, make

621
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: it an include of empowering space for folks who aren't norms.

622
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 1: And I did love reading in your book when you

623
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:09,879
Speaker 1: were talking specifically about when the fact that the black

624
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 1: community would coin these terms or um language like woke

625
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:17,440
Speaker 1: had been really taken over. It's now blown obviously all

626
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:20,319
Speaker 1: kinds of ways um, and it's kind of ignored whence

627
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 1: it becomes popular and becomes a term that is acknowledged

628
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 1: that it was ever started. It began with the black

629
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 1: community and trying to beg those people that are not

630
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:34,720
Speaker 1: black to understand what is happening in whatever political or

631
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 1: even just humanitarian a lot types of ways that their

632
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 1: rights were being taken away in any type of form.

633
00:38:39,680 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: And I did like that you did talk about that

634
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:43,319
Speaker 1: A little bit can you talk a little more, and

635
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:45,360
Speaker 1: I know it wasn't too big of an excerpt, but

636
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: you were talking about how it has originated there and

637
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:51,240
Speaker 1: how it kind of just how big of an influence

638
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 1: it does have in everyday life. Oh absolutely, I mean,

639
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: we have we have African American folks and speakers of

640
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: African American English to thank for all of our treasured

641
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:05,919
Speaker 1: slang terms in English. You know, terms as new as

642
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 1: woke and squad and boy, and as old as the

643
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: use of bad to mean good and the phrase. I mean.

644
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:16,720
Speaker 1: I talked to this amazing linguist um at the University

645
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:19,920
Speaker 1: of Texas at Austin named Sonia Lainhardt, who studies African

646
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 1: American English and women um, and she told me that

647
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:26,800
Speaker 1: the first time she ever heard a white male news

648
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:31,919
Speaker 1: anchor on the television use the phrase, she nearly spit

649
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: out her drink because that derived from African American English.

650
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 1: And you know, not only that, but so many of

651
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:43,440
Speaker 1: today's most beloved slang terms that we see used on

652
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 1: social media all the time, like throwing shade and read

653
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:52,760
Speaker 1: and work and yass um and iconic. These are terms

654
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:56,240
Speaker 1: that are so often attributed to you know, broad city

655
00:39:56,400 --> 00:40:00,200
Speaker 1: or the Internet but they derive from ballroom culture, which

656
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 1: was a community of extremely marginalized black and Latin X

657
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: you know, trans and gay drag performers, um, whose heyday

658
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 1: was in nineteen eighties ballroom New York. And we so

659
00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:16,319
Speaker 1: often fail to recognize and you know, it's not, you know,

660
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 1: explicitly everyone's fault. It's just it's our culture. You know,

661
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 1: we don't want to give credit where credit is due,

662
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:26,120
Speaker 1: and we don't want to acknowledge, um, the originators of

663
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:28,879
Speaker 1: some of this language. And by the way, like sort

664
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 1: of like what you were saying, These folks don't create

665
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:33,320
Speaker 1: slang because they think it will be trendy and catchy

666
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 1: and they want to create a hashtag and they want

667
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:38,359
Speaker 1: to become Instagram famous. They create this language because it's

668
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 1: a matter of solidarity and survival. You know, when when

669
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 1: ballroom performers were using some of that language in the eighties,

670
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:49,760
Speaker 1: it was so they could identify who was safe to trust,

671
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,839
Speaker 1: who was a part of their their group, um, so

672
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 1: that they could avoid persecution, so that they could avoid violence. UM.

673
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 1: And that is so much of why know, many queer

674
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 1: communities and communities of color invent with language, UM, because

675
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're at the risk of really you know,

676
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 1: real life violence. UM. And that's such an important thing

677
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:16,000
Speaker 1: to recognize. And so it's like it's like everything else,

678
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 1: you know, we're seeing so much communication right now about

679
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:23,520
Speaker 1: how you know, we wish that America loved black people

680
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:26,000
Speaker 1: as much as they as we love black culture. And

681
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: that has to do with music and um and fashion

682
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 1: and very much has to do with language. And so

683
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 1: you know, the least we can do, if we're going

684
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 1: to use some of the products of of these communities

685
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 1: is to support them at every turn. And I talked

686
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: a lot with Sonia Laine hard about this, and she

687
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:49,759
Speaker 1: very generously told me, you know, we don't have to

688
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:54,759
Speaker 1: stop using words like like woke and boy and seven um.

689
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 1: And these are just a few of the countless examples.

690
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:00,799
Speaker 1: But what we have to do is show up for

691
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: these communities or else we're hypocrites. Um. And because at

692
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you know, our language and

693
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:13,000
Speaker 1: our politics are connected, our language and our ethics are connected, um.

694
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:16,360
Speaker 1: And we need to remember that. So, yeah, thank you

695
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:19,720
Speaker 1: for bringing that up. I love that. Yeah. I loved

696
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: in your book how you described women's conversations like jazz

697
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:29,520
Speaker 1: and then particularly black women's conversation sort of like speech building,

698
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: a community building and consensus, because I've never thought of

699
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:35,360
Speaker 1: it in that way, but that was a really cool

700
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:37,719
Speaker 1: way to think of it because a lot of the

701
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 1: things that we do demonize, the likes, which I also

702
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 1: like how you broke down there are four different types

703
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 1: of them, and they oh there are six, there are

704
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:50,120
Speaker 1: six six. Oh my gosh, that's so cool. Those things

705
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:52,919
Speaker 1: that we demonize are sort of a way of yes,

706
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: I hear you. I'm like with you as we're going

707
00:42:56,160 --> 00:43:00,880
Speaker 1: through this conversational journey and you're building something absolutely yeah. Yeah,

708
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 1: so right, so you're talking about how there's this linguist

709
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: who has dedicated a lot of her career to understanding

710
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 1: the many forms of the word like in English, and

711
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 1: they're actually six of them, and they all serve a

712
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 1: very distinct purpose, and um, we don't you know, we

713
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:18,280
Speaker 1: don't even notice or acknowledge that because we just blame

714
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:20,840
Speaker 1: you know, teenage girls for all these likes and for

715
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: ruining the English language, even though um, most people of

716
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 1: all ages and all genders use all six um, because

717
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:31,640
Speaker 1: they all are extremely useful. But yeah, you were talking

718
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:35,399
Speaker 1: about them. You know this the style of talk that

719
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:39,120
Speaker 1: this one linguist in particular, Jennifer Coates noticed um in

720
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 1: women's conversations, um is is likened to a jam session,

721
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 1: like a jazz jam session. UM, because in conversations among women,

722
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:52,480
Speaker 1: you'll often hear overlapping talk, you know, speakers repeating one

723
00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 1: another or rephrasing one another's words. Um. And everyone is

724
00:43:56,200 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: sort of working together to construct meaning. UM. So you know,

725
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: the sort of like one speaker at a time rule

726
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 1: doesn't apply even though you see that one speaker at

727
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:09,719
Speaker 1: a time structure and a lot of conversations among men

728
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: because you know, and these are these are large generalizations obviously,

729
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:15,879
Speaker 1: but um, it's interesting to think about how a lot

730
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:19,359
Speaker 1: of the time, you know, women are conditioned also, these

731
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:21,759
Speaker 1: are these are not you know, ways of talking that

732
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:25,359
Speaker 1: we are born understanding. We're we're conditioned to understand them

733
00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:27,880
Speaker 1: and to use them. But um, you know, women often,

734
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:33,560
Speaker 1: you know, perceive the conversational floor on a horizontal level

735
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 1: as a way to you know, create meaning and build solidarity,

736
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:40,279
Speaker 1: whereas men oftentimes see it um as a in a

737
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:45,480
Speaker 1: vertical way, um, in order to express individual achievement. UM.

738
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 1: And so that's why you see this this jam session

739
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 1: E style. In in the talk of women and um

740
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:57,800
Speaker 1: and Yeah, Sonia Elainhardt Um had talked about how minimal

741
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: responses are something you so often see in the speech

742
00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: of of black women's communities, and how they especially are

743
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:09,799
Speaker 1: are incredibly savvy at using things like minimal responses and

744
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,279
Speaker 1: those are are words like mm hmm and you're right,

745
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:15,839
Speaker 1: and yes, um to build on one another's points and

746
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: to uh support one another and um sort of emotionally

747
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 1: support each other. Um. And these are things that are

748
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:25,840
Speaker 1: criticized even though they're not inherently bad. Actually, as recently

749
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:29,319
Speaker 1: as yesterday, somebody tagged me in an Instagram post, a

750
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 1: new Instagram post where someone was, you know, perpetuating this

751
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:37,440
Speaker 1: information that we see all the time, where they were saying, like, ladies,

752
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 1: we need to stop using filler words like just you

753
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 1: know actually and I feel like because these are just

754
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 1: words that we have all learned to use to soften

755
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 1: the confidence of our convictions. And just as we have

756
00:45:52,719 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 1: been taught to express insecurity about our appearance, we've been

757
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 1: taught to use these hedges or filler words. They don't

758
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:01,600
Speaker 1: even know the word um. We've been taught to use

759
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 1: these filler words to express insecurity of what we're saying,

760
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,799
Speaker 1: and we need to stop using them because that is

761
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:13,319
Speaker 1: just telling men that we really are insecure. But that's

762
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:17,279
Speaker 1: just a first impression and it's based on nothing, it's

763
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:21,840
Speaker 1: based on no studies. The linguists who have empirically looked

764
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 1: into hedges UM that's a synonym for filler words. These

765
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: are also known as discourse markers, have found that they

766
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 1: are so rarely used to communicate insecurity UM, and that

767
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:37,480
Speaker 1: they are much more often used to to do some

768
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: of those same things like build solidarity and check for

769
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:45,600
Speaker 1: the face needs of everyone in a conversation UM. And

770
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:49,840
Speaker 1: linguists have found that often speech lacking in legs you

771
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:54,760
Speaker 1: knows and actually comes across as two careful and robotic

772
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 1: and unfriendly and these these you know legs and you knows.

773
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:02,360
Speaker 1: And actually these hedges are only used more by women

774
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:06,839
Speaker 1: than men because women more often than not dive into

775
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:10,879
Speaker 1: sensitive territory during their discussions, so men aren't having as

776
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: sensitive of conversations and so these speech characteristics aren't as

777
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 1: useful to them. UM. But when women are talking about

778
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 1: everything from families to relationships to therapy to you know, politics, UM,

779
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:30,399
Speaker 1: to social justice. You know, you need some of these

780
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:34,040
Speaker 1: hedges in order to account for the face needs of

781
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 1: everyone in a discussion and to sort of soften really sensitive,

782
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 1: oftentimes harsh and hard to hear sentiments. So yeah, I'm

783
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 1: so right when I start to think like, oh, everybody

784
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 1: already knows this word slept stuff, I like get tagged

785
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 1: in a post like that, and I'm like, oh, no,

786
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:56,920
Speaker 1: they do not. We have a little bit more for

787
00:47:57,000 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 1: you listeners, but first we have one more quick break

788
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:16,600
Speaker 1: for work from Responsive and her back thanky sponsor. Oh

789
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 1: my gosh, I have so many things I want to

790
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:19,840
Speaker 1: ask you, but we would be remiss if we didn't

791
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 1: talk about cursing yum, because this is actually something I've

792
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 1: been thinking about a lot. I had a friend who, uh,

793
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 1: she's actually my other podcast host over on Savor Lauren.

794
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:38,040
Speaker 1: She curses a lot, and she pointed out to me,

795
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:42,120
Speaker 1: like a month ago, if you think about it, you know,

796
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:45,719
Speaker 1: we say motherfucker, what if we said father fucker, say

797
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 1: son of a bit? Like it's always an assault towards women,

798
00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:53,799
Speaker 1: that's in the end. Um. And so you mentioned the

799
00:48:53,920 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 1: history of the sea word and a bitch and slut

800
00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:59,600
Speaker 1: and me claiming these things. Is there like a particular

801
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: uh one that you would like to dive into the

802
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 1: history of and just women in cursing in general, because

803
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:09,000
Speaker 1: we do have a real anxiety about that, as you

804
00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:13,520
Speaker 1: sort of alluded to. Yeah, yeah, so there was this study.

805
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:15,920
Speaker 1: So basically, I guess to give a little bit of

806
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 1: context because we are talking about so many topics the

807
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:21,760
Speaker 1: this book words lit. I'm sure some readers who are

808
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 1: are listeners who are unfamiliar, like what is this book

809
00:49:25,680 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 1: that talks about so many things? Basically, like every chapter

810
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:31,760
Speaker 1: tackles a different subject having to do with language and gender,

811
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:36,760
Speaker 1: from insults to grammatical gender, to the conversations among women

812
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:39,359
Speaker 1: when men aren't around, and myths about gossip and things

813
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: like that too, cursing to genitalia, naming slang throughout history.

814
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:45,600
Speaker 1: It like runs the gamut. It's it's it's a big

815
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:48,319
Speaker 1: old beast. Um, it's a one on one, it's it's

816
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 1: a big one on one introduction. Absolutely. Yeah, it's funny

817
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 1: that you say that, because I in the early days

818
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:58,080
Speaker 1: of like putting together, um, the outline for this book,

819
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:01,120
Speaker 1: I kind of based it on my sex, gender and

820
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:04,719
Speaker 1: Language college syllabus because I figured like, if I fell

821
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:06,880
Speaker 1: in love with this material in this class, then that

822
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:10,040
Speaker 1: then probably work on other people too. Obviously, it has

823
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:14,040
Speaker 1: gotten pretty far from my college syllabus. Um. There there

824
00:50:14,160 --> 00:50:17,360
Speaker 1: is no chapter in my sex, Gender and Language class

825
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: called get an ode to Cursing while Female, which is

826
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 1: the chapter that you're referencing. Um, But I'm a potty

827
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 1: mouth too, and so I had to include it. But yeah,

828
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:29,680
Speaker 1: I was really interested in talking about cursing because I

829
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:34,240
Speaker 1: do curse so very much, and I'm also like so

830
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:40,240
Speaker 1: resentful of the stereotypes that people who curse just can't

831
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:43,239
Speaker 1: think of anything better to say. And I was like,

832
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 1: I really and also, you know, I I was so

833
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:50,719
Speaker 1: mystified by why I, as a female, was perceived as

834
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:54,440
Speaker 1: being you know, even more crass or almost more intriguing

835
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:57,759
Speaker 1: in a way for cursing, um than men. And so

836
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:02,880
Speaker 1: I found this study that was looking into young men's

837
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:06,920
Speaker 1: and women's self reported reasons for cursing, and it was

838
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 1: it was pretty interesting because, um, I related to a

839
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:13,920
Speaker 1: lot of the answers that the women in this study gave. Um.

840
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:16,200
Speaker 1: You know a lot of them talked about how there

841
00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:18,759
Speaker 1: are reasons for cursing. Well, first of all, I want

842
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:22,359
Speaker 1: to mention that linguist who studied cursing have found that

843
00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:27,080
Speaker 1: cursing is not inherently aggressive or violent, even though it

844
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:29,760
Speaker 1: is perceived that way, which is also why it's perceived

845
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:33,240
Speaker 1: as an inherently more masculine thing. But in very few

846
00:51:33,320 --> 00:51:37,400
Speaker 1: instances of everyday cursing are people using it to convey

847
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:40,760
Speaker 1: aggression or violence. You know, there are in fact forms

848
00:51:40,760 --> 00:51:44,560
Speaker 1: of polite cursing, as in the sentence oh my god,

849
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:47,640
Speaker 1: this banana breag you just baked is the ship? Or

850
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:51,360
Speaker 1: I think love your jacket. You know, these are actively

851
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:54,799
Speaker 1: polite forms of cursing. They might be crassed, they might

852
00:51:54,840 --> 00:51:58,759
Speaker 1: be bleeped on I Heart radio, but you know, they

853
00:51:58,760 --> 00:52:03,480
Speaker 1: are not inherently violent. Um So, anyway, that some of

854
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:07,080
Speaker 1: these self reported reasons for cursing by women interested me

855
00:52:07,160 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: because they were having to do with um personality and

856
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:16,279
Speaker 1: emphasis and crafting a certain identity. You know, these were

857
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: some of the reasons why women cursed, where men self

858
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 1: reported that they cursed just because it was expected. And

859
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting because people have this sort

860
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:29,319
Speaker 1: of um awareness that there are these gender disparities in

861
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:32,440
Speaker 1: our expectations of how men and women should use language

862
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:35,239
Speaker 1: with regard to cursing. And I was thinking in my head,

863
00:52:35,280 --> 00:52:38,800
Speaker 1: you know, like I do that too. I curse for emphasis,

864
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 1: for personality, for kutzpuff, for shock value. Um never because

865
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:47,640
Speaker 1: it's expected. Sometimes I'll actively do it just to like

866
00:52:47,719 --> 00:52:49,840
Speaker 1: shake things up in a business meeting, you know what

867
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:52,560
Speaker 1: I mean, Just like, let's see what if I throw

868
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 1: up if I throw an F word out here on

869
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:58,719
Speaker 1: one of these stuffy people in suits, gonna do um

870
00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:01,480
Speaker 1: and that, And that's sort of an act of, you know,

871
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 1: rebellion against expectations and an act of crafting a certain identity.

872
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:08,240
Speaker 1: And I think that's what a lot of women do

873
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:11,839
Speaker 1: with cursing. UM. But yeah, I think a lot of

874
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:16,239
Speaker 1: curse words to um, like to your point, are reflecting

875
00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 1: a masculine point of view, and we talk about some

876
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:23,400
Speaker 1: of them are are profoundly homophobic as well. UM. And

877
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:26,480
Speaker 1: so you know, I I love cursing, and I love

878
00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:29,680
Speaker 1: the phono symbolism of cursing, the sort of you know,

879
00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:34,800
Speaker 1: hard plosive consonants, the cuz and the puzz and the

880
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:38,800
Speaker 1: puzz and the uzz. I just like love the power

881
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:41,839
Speaker 1: and those sounds. Um. Those are also some of the

882
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 1: first sounds that babies utter in their babbling phase, so

883
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:48,640
Speaker 1: they're sort of some of our favorite sounds from birth.

884
00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 1: And so um. You know, something that that I sometimes

885
00:53:54,160 --> 00:53:57,399
Speaker 1: like to experiment with and invite other people to experiment with,

886
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:01,319
Speaker 1: is um like creating our own curse words, like in

887
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:03,480
Speaker 1: the in the book, at a point I suggest, and

888
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 1: do I buy any means envision our culture doing away

889
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:11,239
Speaker 1: with our current vocabulary of curse words and replacing them

890
00:54:11,239 --> 00:54:13,400
Speaker 1: with you know, more feminist ones. No, but it is

891
00:54:13,480 --> 00:54:15,279
Speaker 1: fun to think about it. It is fun to kind

892
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:19,120
Speaker 1: of reframe our perception of language um as you know,

893
00:54:19,400 --> 00:54:21,200
Speaker 1: as one of like, oh, we can get creative with

894
00:54:21,239 --> 00:54:23,759
Speaker 1: this stuff. So um. One of the ones that I

895
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:28,920
Speaker 1: that I suggest is holy clit, which I think is

896
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:32,799
Speaker 1: kind of fun. Um. You know. Obviously. The other thing

897
00:54:32,840 --> 00:54:36,520
Speaker 1: too that's really interesting is that our curse words really reflect, um,

898
00:54:37,120 --> 00:54:41,279
Speaker 1: the standards and fears of our culture. So in um

899
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 1: Canadian French, for example, so many of their curse words

900
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:48,319
Speaker 1: have to do with religion and Catholicism, like tabianic like

901
00:54:48,360 --> 00:54:50,600
Speaker 1: which means tabernacle or I don't even know how to

902
00:54:50,640 --> 00:54:54,719
Speaker 1: say that I'm Jewish, so um. But but um in

903
00:54:54,719 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 1: in English, so many of our curse words have to

904
00:54:57,560 --> 00:55:00,959
Speaker 1: do with sex, right, and that really you know, it's

905
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:03,480
Speaker 1: it's the puritanism of it all and the and the

906
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:06,920
Speaker 1: scandal of sex um is what that really reflects. But

907
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 1: we also have a whole category of cursing that's you know, schatology.

908
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:14,200
Speaker 1: Um like asked, which I know because you told me

909
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:16,680
Speaker 1: will be bleeped. I think that's so funny. Why is

910
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:20,880
Speaker 1: asked not believed but asked? I guess because asked is

911
00:55:20,920 --> 00:55:24,400
Speaker 1: sort of subtly implying just the cheeks, and then asked

912
00:55:24,719 --> 00:55:27,960
Speaker 1: was a little more internal. You could probably get away with,

913
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:33,320
Speaker 1: you know, it's a donkey thing or whatever. My favorite,

914
00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:35,319
Speaker 1: like two of my favorites would be asked hat because

915
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:37,880
Speaker 1: I don't think it's used us just fun that's a

916
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:41,600
Speaker 1: funny vision. That's like it was a literal thing. I

917
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:44,040
Speaker 1: was like, ah, that's you have an asked for a

918
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:46,480
Speaker 1: hat or you know, something like dick. Like that's one

919
00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 1: of my other favorite was because it's a funny is

920
00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:52,400
Speaker 1: not many I thought, it's not as known as what

921
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:55,239
Speaker 1: do you mean dick? And I was like, what, you know,

922
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 1: he's a dick or there a dick, you know, stuff

923
00:55:57,080 --> 00:55:59,960
Speaker 1: like that, and it's kind of like people kind of confused,

924
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:02,959
Speaker 1: is if I'm not saying, you know, any other cards words.

925
00:56:03,040 --> 00:56:05,479
Speaker 1: But also because of the sounds, it's a really hard

926
00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:10,600
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, exactly exactly, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true like

927
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:12,799
Speaker 1: so so many of our and Dick is like sort

928
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 1: of the one outlier that paints, um, you know, fallacism

929
00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:21,440
Speaker 1: and is that even a word, fallacism in a negative light? Um,

930
00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:25,520
Speaker 1: whereas we have so many that portray you know, Volva's

931
00:56:25,680 --> 00:56:29,080
Speaker 1: in in a negative light. Um. But yeah, I mean

932
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:31,879
Speaker 1: not to men like douchebag, like all these terms. Oh

933
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:34,000
Speaker 1: my god. This is a story that I don't think

934
00:56:34,000 --> 00:56:36,320
Speaker 1: I've ever told, like in an event or a podcast

935
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:39,040
Speaker 1: or anything before. But I remember, like it's so funny

936
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:41,680
Speaker 1: when you're experimenting with cursing for the first time when

937
00:56:41,719 --> 00:56:45,439
Speaker 1: you're a kid, because you're like so intrigued by this

938
00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:48,120
Speaker 1: language that you know is taboo. You just like have

939
00:56:48,239 --> 00:56:50,799
Speaker 1: a feeling is taboo. But but you don't know what

940
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:54,000
Speaker 1: these individual words mean, and the only way to learn

941
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:57,359
Speaker 1: what they mean is to like use them. But sometimes

942
00:56:57,400 --> 00:57:00,239
Speaker 1: you use them in a context that's like so just

943
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 1: like such a misstep. Like I remember the first time

944
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:06,560
Speaker 1: I ever used the word douche. I called my mom

945
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:10,319
Speaker 1: a douche. I was like seven. I don't know where

946
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:13,640
Speaker 1: I heard it. I must have heard it at school, uh,

947
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:15,719
Speaker 1: And I called my mom a douche and she was

948
00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:19,240
Speaker 1: just like what, Like where did you hear that? My

949
00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:22,200
Speaker 1: mom was like a very composed scientist. By the way,

950
00:57:22,320 --> 00:57:26,080
Speaker 1: like my mom, I didn't really curse in front of

951
00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:27,800
Speaker 1: my parents in the way that I genuinely do in

952
00:57:27,840 --> 00:57:30,040
Speaker 1: my everyday life until I was like in my twenties

953
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:32,800
Speaker 1: because I just didn't think they could handle it because

954
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,760
Speaker 1: they're not really that vulgar. They're these very like mild

955
00:57:35,840 --> 00:57:39,400
Speaker 1: mannered scientists. But um, yeah, I like called my mom

956
00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:42,320
Speaker 1: a douche and she was like, Amanda, do you know

957
00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:45,080
Speaker 1: what that is? And then of course she very clinically

958
00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:50,960
Speaker 1: described this like yeast infection causing even like product that

959
00:57:51,080 --> 00:57:55,120
Speaker 1: was invented because our culture thinks that vaginas are dirty, um,

960
00:57:55,480 --> 00:58:00,320
Speaker 1: when really there's some cleaning books. Um. But anyways, um, yeah,

961
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:03,960
Speaker 1: that's just a funny story about how like we just

962
00:58:04,160 --> 00:58:06,920
Speaker 1: the way that we come to use curse words or

963
00:58:06,960 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 1: come to learn curse words is such an awkward process,

964
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:13,040
Speaker 1: So like why not make that awkward process for the

965
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 1: next generation, just a little more feminist, you know, have

966
00:58:15,560 --> 00:58:17,160
Speaker 1: your seven year old come to you and be like,

967
00:58:17,400 --> 00:58:22,800
Speaker 1: holy clip, pepper pig is on again. Whatever that is.

968
00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:24,200
Speaker 1: As soon as I thought, I don't think I have

969
00:58:24,240 --> 00:58:25,960
Speaker 1: ever thought I would hear, so thank you for that.

970
00:58:30,960 --> 00:58:37,120
Speaker 1: I enjoyed that one. So right now as we record this,

971
00:58:37,200 --> 00:58:39,360
Speaker 1: probably by the time it comes out it's no longer true.

972
00:58:39,400 --> 00:58:42,800
Speaker 1: But right now it's Pride month, um, and we are

973
00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:48,480
Speaker 1: seeing this massive social push for change and protesting, and

974
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:54,400
Speaker 1: and your book you you write um about how in

975
00:58:54,440 --> 00:58:58,160
Speaker 1: the right hands, uh, language can change the world, and

976
00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:02,480
Speaker 1: that you say it may sound melodramatic, but it isn't. Um. Yeah,

977
00:59:02,520 --> 00:59:05,240
Speaker 1: so can you. I guess to close this out because

978
00:59:05,240 --> 00:59:08,080
Speaker 1: this we have talked. We've talked a little bit about

979
00:59:08,160 --> 00:59:12,200
Speaker 1: those things, about how the black community and the gay

980
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:14,560
Speaker 1: community has given us so much and they've been like

981
00:59:14,640 --> 00:59:17,360
Speaker 1: these innovators in language. And you have a chapter on

982
00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:20,280
Speaker 1: the gay voice, and while lesbians don't really have the

983
00:59:20,360 --> 00:59:24,240
Speaker 1: gay voice, and I feel like they are, there's so

984
00:59:24,280 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 1: many things we do take for granted. And just to

985
00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:31,160
Speaker 1: tag on because this is a complete sub different subject,

986
00:59:31,160 --> 00:59:33,280
Speaker 1: but I know you talk a lot about gender specifically,

987
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:37,160
Speaker 1: and obviously that's a really big topic right now with

988
00:59:37,320 --> 00:59:41,640
Speaker 1: some of the um things with our novelists who people

989
00:59:41,640 --> 00:59:43,520
Speaker 1: want to love. I'm not going to call her she

990
00:59:43,520 --> 00:59:48,280
Speaker 1: who shall not be named, but just that conversation, I

991
00:59:48,280 --> 00:59:50,080
Speaker 1: know you had a whole chapter on that, and I

992
00:59:50,080 --> 00:59:52,640
Speaker 1: found it really fascinating because you kind of just instead

993
00:59:52,680 --> 00:59:57,040
Speaker 1: of like being antagonistic, you took down the actual history

994
00:59:57,040 --> 01:00:01,080
Speaker 1: of it. So if you can align both of those things. Yeah,

995
01:00:01,280 --> 01:00:03,439
Speaker 1: I know that's different. No, No, that no, I think

996
01:00:03,480 --> 01:00:07,440
Speaker 1: like I think the through line really is that, you know,

997
01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:12,959
Speaker 1: there's there was some French philosopher who said that language

998
01:00:13,000 --> 01:00:16,480
Speaker 1: is the medium for humans, just as water as to fish,

999
01:00:16,640 --> 01:00:21,440
Speaker 1: Like we create the world with language. We don't just

1000
01:00:21,520 --> 01:00:25,840
Speaker 1: reflect it, we don't just describe it. We actively create

1001
01:00:26,040 --> 01:00:30,320
Speaker 1: the world through the repetition of language, through everything we say.

1002
01:00:30,360 --> 01:00:34,000
Speaker 1: And that's a a theory called linguistic performativity, and it

1003
01:00:34,080 --> 01:00:38,120
Speaker 1: was in part pioneered by the feminist icon Judith Butler,

1004
01:00:38,160 --> 01:00:41,760
Speaker 1: who talked about gender performativity. And that's a whole that

1005
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:44,760
Speaker 1: that's kind of that's like gender studies class now. But um,

1006
01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:50,200
Speaker 1: but it is it is so true that we cultivate

1007
01:00:50,320 --> 01:00:54,560
Speaker 1: our beliefs through language. There is no other way to

1008
01:00:54,600 --> 01:00:58,080
Speaker 1: do it. We don't have beliefs without language what we do.

1009
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:03,680
Speaker 1: And that's another theory called linguistic determinism versus linguistic relativism. Um.

1010
01:01:03,720 --> 01:01:08,400
Speaker 1: But yeah, but um. And this actually relates to you know,

1011
01:01:08,480 --> 01:01:10,600
Speaker 1: some of what I'm I'm writing about in the cult

1012
01:01:10,640 --> 01:01:14,880
Speaker 1: book UM as well is that, you know, ideology could

1013
01:01:14,920 --> 01:01:21,480
Speaker 1: not be instilled or proliferated without language. And so the

1014
01:01:21,560 --> 01:01:26,000
Speaker 1: way that we describe things, whether it's gender or sexuality

1015
01:01:26,200 --> 01:01:30,800
Speaker 1: or race, it not only you know, reflects what we believe,

1016
01:01:31,080 --> 01:01:35,200
Speaker 1: but it creates a world. It creates a system of beliefs,

1017
01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:40,880
Speaker 1: the culture of beliefs. And so becoming aware of the

1018
01:01:41,000 --> 01:01:43,640
Speaker 1: histories of some of these words and the history of

1019
01:01:43,680 --> 01:01:49,840
Speaker 1: how language develops, UM can really better. It can help

1020
01:01:49,920 --> 01:01:52,560
Speaker 1: us make better informed decisions about how we want to

1021
01:01:52,680 --> 01:01:56,960
Speaker 1: use language. It can help us create the world that

1022
01:01:57,000 --> 01:02:00,680
Speaker 1: we want to live in, or continue to perpetuate a

1023
01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:04,160
Speaker 1: world that that isn't equal and that is problematic, and

1024
01:02:04,200 --> 01:02:07,640
Speaker 1: that is oppressive. And this isn't stuff that we learn

1025
01:02:07,840 --> 01:02:10,760
Speaker 1: in elementary or middle or high school. We don't learn

1026
01:02:10,800 --> 01:02:14,200
Speaker 1: about these things. We just come to use language. So naturally,

1027
01:02:14,720 --> 01:02:18,640
Speaker 1: and so my whole mission with with socio linguistics, and

1028
01:02:18,720 --> 01:02:22,120
Speaker 1: it's one that I so hope continue is far past

1029
01:02:22,200 --> 01:02:27,080
Speaker 1: what I'm able to write, is that I don't want

1030
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:31,680
Speaker 1: to police anyone's language or force anyone to say anything.

1031
01:02:31,800 --> 01:02:34,120
Speaker 1: I don't want my language to be policed. I don't

1032
01:02:34,120 --> 01:02:35,880
Speaker 1: want people to tell me that I can't name my

1033
01:02:35,920 --> 01:02:38,160
Speaker 1: book words let I don't want people to tell me

1034
01:02:38,280 --> 01:02:41,400
Speaker 1: that singular they is ungrammatical. I don't want people to

1035
01:02:41,440 --> 01:02:45,040
Speaker 1: tell me any of that stuff. But really, what this

1036
01:02:45,600 --> 01:02:49,680
Speaker 1: information and why I'm so grateful to these linguists, why

1037
01:02:49,720 --> 01:02:52,880
Speaker 1: this stuff is important, is because it's allowing us to

1038
01:02:52,920 --> 01:02:56,120
Speaker 1: become more educated, so then we can make our own

1039
01:02:56,160 --> 01:02:59,680
Speaker 1: decisions about how we want to use language to create

1040
01:02:59,760 --> 01:03:02,920
Speaker 1: the role that we want to see. UM. And you know,

1041
01:03:03,000 --> 01:03:05,120
Speaker 1: there's this amazing linguist that I talked to a ton

1042
01:03:05,280 --> 01:03:09,000
Speaker 1: for this book named law Zaman, who UM studies language

1043
01:03:09,000 --> 01:03:12,400
Speaker 1: and gender, particularly is it relates to transgender communities. He's

1044
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:16,200
Speaker 1: at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and he and I,

1045
01:03:16,360 --> 01:03:19,440
Speaker 1: he and I were really share a lot of of

1046
01:03:19,560 --> 01:03:23,280
Speaker 1: points because you can get really pessimistic about a lot

1047
01:03:23,320 --> 01:03:26,960
Speaker 1: of things. UM, particularly when you see how like whenever

1048
01:03:27,080 --> 01:03:30,720
Speaker 1: there's a push for inclusive language, a lot of the

1049
01:03:30,800 --> 01:03:35,040
Speaker 1: times the opposition is like more powerful than the initial

1050
01:03:35,240 --> 01:03:38,600
Speaker 1: than the initial movement, and you have all this backlash

1051
01:03:38,640 --> 01:03:41,720
Speaker 1: and all this hate speech because people don't want to

1052
01:03:41,760 --> 01:03:46,280
Speaker 1: see language change, because people don't want to see culture change. Um.

1053
01:03:46,320 --> 01:03:50,720
Speaker 1: But he's incredibly optimistic, and like the last line in

1054
01:03:50,720 --> 01:03:54,320
Speaker 1: in my book, UM says, like he says, I have

1055
01:03:54,520 --> 01:03:56,720
Speaker 1: to be optimistic to make it through. You have to

1056
01:03:56,760 --> 01:03:59,200
Speaker 1: believe it's possible. You know you have and this and

1057
01:03:59,280 --> 01:04:00,920
Speaker 1: this has to do with activism, It has to do

1058
01:04:00,960 --> 01:04:02,880
Speaker 1: with language, It has to do with everything. Like you

1059
01:04:03,080 --> 01:04:07,840
Speaker 1: have to believe that if you put forth the effort

1060
01:04:08,120 --> 01:04:10,800
Speaker 1: to educate yourself and make sure that your actions and

1061
01:04:10,840 --> 01:04:14,600
Speaker 1: your language is reflecting that education, you have to believe

1062
01:04:14,680 --> 01:04:17,960
Speaker 1: that that will create a better world. And and language

1063
01:04:18,000 --> 01:04:20,440
Speaker 1: is a is an incredibly peaceable way to do that.

1064
01:04:20,480 --> 01:04:23,440
Speaker 1: And you don't even have to leave your house. Um.

1065
01:04:23,520 --> 01:04:28,040
Speaker 1: So you know, language change and ideological societal cultural change

1066
01:04:28,120 --> 01:04:31,040
Speaker 1: go hand in hand. You cannot force someone to use

1067
01:04:31,120 --> 01:04:35,000
Speaker 1: language a certain way and expect their ideology to follow.

1068
01:04:36,000 --> 01:04:38,000
Speaker 1: So you have to get people on board with the

1069
01:04:38,040 --> 01:04:42,520
Speaker 1: ideology first. But if you are already on board with equality,

1070
01:04:42,840 --> 01:04:46,960
Speaker 1: with gender, equality, with you know, with certain sexual and

1071
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:50,280
Speaker 1: gender identities that maybe weren't approved of fifty years ago,

1072
01:04:50,640 --> 01:04:55,680
Speaker 1: with racial quality, then goodness knows, our our speech and

1073
01:04:55,720 --> 01:04:59,080
Speaker 1: our language should reflect that. And you know, what I'm

1074
01:04:59,120 --> 01:05:02,040
Speaker 1: trying to do is give people the tools to make

1075
01:05:02,080 --> 01:05:04,880
Speaker 1: that happen. Just some of the tools. UM. So that

1076
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:07,560
Speaker 1: those are kind of generalized statements, but they can apply

1077
01:05:07,680 --> 01:05:12,680
Speaker 1: to to so many communities. I think, yes, um, and

1078
01:05:13,240 --> 01:05:16,360
Speaker 1: thank you so much for for joining us and having

1079
01:05:16,400 --> 01:05:19,120
Speaker 1: this conversation, for writing the book. Um, there's so many

1080
01:05:19,160 --> 01:05:21,720
Speaker 1: things listeners, if you want to know, like about the

1081
01:05:21,800 --> 01:05:24,120
Speaker 1: history of gender, which is much shorter than I thought

1082
01:05:24,120 --> 01:05:29,200
Speaker 1: it was history, The word gender, yeah it is. Yeah,

1083
01:05:29,840 --> 01:05:34,680
Speaker 1: I was like, what the history of curse words? Um?

1084
01:05:34,840 --> 01:05:37,440
Speaker 1: Our thoughts about sex, which we didn't get to get into.

1085
01:05:37,520 --> 01:05:40,120
Speaker 1: But how words shape our our thoughts about sex and

1086
01:05:40,160 --> 01:05:44,640
Speaker 1: our bodies. That's all in this running of the Gamut book.

1087
01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:48,000
Speaker 1: The defense of y'all, which I really appreciated since here

1088
01:05:48,040 --> 01:05:52,360
Speaker 1: in the South, as Georgians, we definitely really appreciated that.

1089
01:05:52,600 --> 01:05:55,080
Speaker 1: Oh hell yeah, I will always go to bat for

1090
01:05:55,160 --> 01:05:58,800
Speaker 1: you all. I have felt so judged for so long,

1091
01:05:58,880 --> 01:06:02,920
Speaker 1: but I feel it's being more accepted now. Yeah. Um, okay,

1092
01:06:03,920 --> 01:06:07,040
Speaker 1: the listeners where they can find you, where they can

1093
01:06:07,080 --> 01:06:10,760
Speaker 1: get your book, all those things. Yeah yeah. You can

1094
01:06:10,800 --> 01:06:14,640
Speaker 1: find me on Instagram at Amanda Underscore Montell and there

1095
01:06:14,680 --> 01:06:18,680
Speaker 1: I postum some little short mini lessons about language and gender.

1096
01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:21,720
Speaker 1: Um quite a lot. So if you want even more

1097
01:06:21,760 --> 01:06:24,200
Speaker 1: of the stuff in micro doses, you can find it

1098
01:06:24,240 --> 01:06:27,080
Speaker 1: there um. And then you can find word Slut wherever

1099
01:06:27,160 --> 01:06:30,160
Speaker 1: books are sold. It's also available in e book and audiobook.

1100
01:06:30,160 --> 01:06:36,080
Speaker 1: And I recorded it so nice, nice, Well, thank you again,

1101
01:06:36,200 --> 01:06:39,439
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Definitely go check

1102
01:06:39,440 --> 01:06:42,400
Speaker 1: Amanda out. Listeners, go read word Slut. It was a

1103
01:06:42,520 --> 01:06:47,000
Speaker 1: very fun, wonderful read um. And if you would like

1104
01:06:47,040 --> 01:06:48,800
Speaker 1: to find out as you can, you can email us

1105
01:06:48,800 --> 01:06:51,640
Speaker 1: at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at i heeart media dot com.

1106
01:06:51,880 --> 01:06:53,640
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram at stuff I've Never

1107
01:06:53,640 --> 01:06:56,320
Speaker 1: Told You, are on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks

1108
01:06:56,320 --> 01:07:00,000
Speaker 1: as always to our superproducer Andrew Howard. Thanks and thanks

1109
01:07:00,000 --> 01:07:02,000
Speaker 1: to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You. His

1110
01:07:02,000 --> 01:07:03,880
Speaker 1: protection of I Heeart Radio for more podcasts from I

1111
01:07:03,920 --> 01:07:06,160
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, but the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1112
01:07:06,160 --> 01:07:07,760
Speaker 1: wherever you listened to your favorite shows,