The Vocal Fries

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Kelly Gaumont, host of the podcast Canuck is a Slur , about his podcast, French Canadians in Alberta, and all things language in Canada. Spanish at the World Cup Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Chad M Topaz , professor of complex systems at Williams College and cofounder of the QSIDE Institute, about his book Unlocking Justice: The Power of Data to Confront Inequity and Create Change . Yoda and BSL Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for liste...

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Valerie Fridland about her newest book, Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents . Maine Monitor interview with Platner Platner's apology Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Drs Lynnette Arnold and Anna I. Corwin about their new co-edited book (with Jennifer R Guzmán and Emily Avera), Language and Health in Action ( ebook ), along with two authors in the same volume, Drs Stephanie Keeney Parks and Abby Mack about their chapters "Autism Diagnostics as White Public Space in US Clinics" and "In the Spirit, in the...

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Kory Stamper , about her newest book, True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color from Azure to Zinc Pink . Out March 31, 2026! Chatbots and bias Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk about the Epstein emails and Chomsky's correspondence with him . Carrie swears more than usual. Support Tim Brookes Kickstarter Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk about the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year . TACO Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Tim Brookes about his newest book, By Hand , about the importance of handwriting. NBER report Current Affairs WOTY:  6-7 rage bait parasocial vibe coding AI slop maple washing Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

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

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk about random words that are scary or scary-adjacent. facsism eldritch ghost vampire Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan Mail We have a few things to say about Pinker. Part of the War on Science The Language Instinct Pinker on Race Realism Co-authored paper on overregularization The Open Letter to the LSA The article that Carrie was interviewed for, but not named, about the Open Letter Our episode on dogwhistling The Harper's Letter Guardian on his appearance on Aporia Support the show Contact us: T...

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Megan C. Reynolds , Dwell magazine editor, about her  book, Like: A History of the World's Most Hated (and Misunderstood) Word . Putin and Russian Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Paulette van der Voet and Martina Terrazzano , PhD students at the University of Umea , about their class called “Linguistics and the Eurovision Song Contest”. Top 20 Eurovision songs Malta and Estonia Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and...

Send us Fan Mail We talk with Dr Lorna Gibb about her newest book, Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages . Steven Pinker: Harvard Derangement Syndrome vs. LSA Jews and IQ Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Drs Emily M. Bender, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington, and Alex Hanna , Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), about their new book, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want , out May 13, 2025. Virtual Book Launch May 8, 2025, 2-4 PDT Bender v. Bubeck Inventing Intellige...

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Gabe Henry about his new book, Enough is enuf: Our failed attempts to make English eezier to spell . Puerto Rico and English as an Official Language Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Gerald Roche , Lecturer in the Department of Languages and Cultures at La Trobe University, about his new book, The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet , language oppression, solidarity, China and Tibet.  LSA's response to the EO on English as the Official Language of the US Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @...

Send us Fan Mail Megan and Carrie talk with Massimiliano Canzanella about the Neapolitan language and how it is perceived in Italy. Asian languages and the LA fires Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Adam Benkato , Associate Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley, about Arabic. codeswitching in incarceration Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep calm and fry...

Send us Fan Mail Megan and Carrie talk to Dr Ayala Fader , professor of anthropology at Fordham University, and Dr Mike Mena , Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY, about their new project, the Demystifying Language Project, where academics and high school students work together to rewrite linguistic articles into more accessible versions. First article: Speech or Silence Intro from our p...

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk to Dr Leonard Cassuto , Professor of English at Fordham University, about his class called "Literature and Psychology of Disgust," which explores how language evokes emotional responses, particularly disgust, and his book Academic Writing as if Readers Matter, which was released in September .   Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod...

Send us Fan Mail  Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Elia Powers , Associate Professor of Journalism at Towson University, about his book Performing the News: Identity, Authority, and the Myth of Neutrality . 5 Podcasts for Word Nerds NY Times Why Does Trump Do That Weird Capitalization Thing? HuffPost (sometimes Gillon is misspelled as Gillion, as per uzh) Support the show Contact us: Threads us @voca...

Send us Fan Mail Megan and Carrie talk with Dr Laura C. Chávez-Moreno , assistant professor at UCLA in the Departments of Chicana/o and Central American Studies and Education, about her book How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America , coming out October 1 . Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@g...

Send us Fan Mail Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Robert Henderson , Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, about his newest book (with Dr Elin Mccready), Signaling without Saying: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Dogwhistles. Botanical taxonomy Common names of birds Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@g...

Send us Fan Mail Megan and Carrie talk with Tim Brookes about his newest book, Writing Beyond Writing , what writing is, his journey to caring about Endangered Alphabets and his favourite scripts. Nuxalk album Red Bubble Insufferable Twits Support the show Contact us: Threads us @vocalfriespod Bluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.social Email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com Thanks for listening and keep c...