Episode 6: Hamburger. Hamburger? Hamburger!

Linguistics After Dark

Wherein we find an excuse to recommend a bunch of music to you.

Jump right to:

• 2:26 Language Thing of the Day: Filler words
• 14:17 Question 1: How did we get nicknames that don't seem to make sense? Like how did "Peggy" come out of "Margaret"?
• 25:26 Question 2: Why do singers' accents almost always become less intense in their singing voices as opposed to their speaking voices?
• 37:30 Question 3: How do we change the meaning of a sentence just by changing vocal pitch? Typed-out transcripts can lose the information conveyed by vocal pitch.
• 1:04:32 Answer to last week's puzzler
• 1:07:39 The puzzler: (Too long for Spotify! Check the post on our site!)

Covered in this episode:

• Filler words in different languages (English, Japanese, ASL), and their discourse function
• Names and their nickname equivalents: Margaret/Peggy, Theodore/Ted, Richard/Dick, John/Jack
• Backformed names (e.g. if Nate is short for Nathan, then Kate is short for Kathan)
• How nicknames are formed in different languages (Russian, Polish, Chinese)
• What are children if not longitudinal linguistic studies?
• The Beatles, Whitney Houston, Blink-182, the Ramones
• Our future as an advice podcast
• Gilbert & Sullivan
• Effect of language exposure before birth on babies' linguistic behavior
• Netspeak and netiquette in the 2000s
• gr8, gr9, T9
• Because Internet and its audiobook version
• Court transcript style guides of the future
• How to destroy a stuffed sheep with a lightbulb

Links and other post-show thoughts:

• Number One brand Thai iced tea (available loose or bagged)
• History of English podcast episode about first names
• vlogbrothers video about the names John and Hank
• Pop punk accent article blink 182: "I'm an American guy faking an English accent faking an American accent," Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong told Rolling Stone in 1994.
• History of Punk docuseries
• Gilbert & Sullivan Modern Major General has excellent patter and limited lyrical. It was tough to find a G&S clip that had both by the same singer in back to back moments.
• Sondheim (Not) Getting Married Today has good patter vs lyrical.
• We couldn't find the My Cousin Vinny clip or Chinese nickname thread. If you find some, send them our way!
• The first five minutes: A sample of microscopic interview analysis by Pittenger, Hockett, and Danehy, which is a book from 1960 analyzing in minute detail the intonational meaning and paralinguistics of the first five minutes of a psychiatric interview.

Ask us questions:

Send your questions (text or voice memo) to [email protected], or find us as @lxadpodcast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Credits:

Linguistics After Dark is produced by Emfozzing Enterprises. Luca edits, Jenny Sarah transcribed this one, and Sarah Eli did the show notes. Our music is "Covert Affair" by Kevin MacLeod.

And until next time… if you weren't consciously aware of your tongue in your mouth, now you are :)