Gretchen McCulloch

We're having a fun comment thread on Patreon Quips about people's childhood rhymes and games!

Catch up on the thread and add your own here (it's free!)

when you and a friend send each other a link to the same meme or news story on two different chat platforms simultaneously that counts as a digital jinx

if anyone manages to score a jinx with a friend by sending them this tweet you BOTH owe me a pepsi

when you and a friend send each other a link to the same meme or news story on two different chat platforms simultaneously that counts as a digital jinx

Missed our previous bonus episode?

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Bonus 109: Skipping rhymes, counting chants, and fortune-telling games - Children's oral culture | Lingthusiasm Get more from Lingthusiasm on Patreon

Remember those skipping/clapping rhymes, counting-off rhymes, and fortune-telling games from your childhood? They're one of the last vestiges of oral culture in our highly literate society

In our latest bonus episode we get enthusiastic about childlore!

Alternatively, we roll a 40-sided die every morning just before dawn to determine how many seconds that day is offset by

Of course, the official d40 is rolled by a different human each time, whoever's birth minute falls closest to the time of rolling

Of course, it should change in a nice parabola like the sunset and sunrise times!

Ooh dropped a zero doing the napkin math, thanks!

Taken to its logical extreme: Between the winter and summer solstice, add 2 seconds per day. Between the summer and winter solstice, subtract 2 seconds per day.

If it was good enough for the Romans, it's good enough for us!

Instead of changing the time on the clock, we just manually adjust every single meeting start time, opening hour, etc twice a year

congrats! very exciting!

"Lingusitics" Sticker for Sale by talkthetalk Who else besides me types this EVERY TIME? • Millions of unique designs by independent artists. Find your thing.

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Absolutely classic

Especially since I'm a linguist

which I typed on my phone and then immediately went back and deleted from my keyboard's predictive text (longpress when it comes up) because this scourge of linguistics must not be allowed to infest this device too

mine is langauge

Eastern time next please?

Oh nooo hahahah I love it, it's cursed

Hah! Lingcod are truly fearsome looking, that's a... dubious distinction

But I'm glad you enjoyed Because Internet so much!

This paragraph, by Carole McGranahan, encapsulates my main beef with LLMs and writing.

“Writing is a commitment to people”, says Jason DeLeon, quoted by McGranahan. Why, then, are we so eager to outsource this commitment to a piece of software?

🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

Book cover: Mother Tongue by Sara Nović as black letters with the corresponding ASL letters overlaid in white, on a yellow background. My hand (with thick silver rings on it) is holding it up against some greenery (an indoor plant was the best I could find this time of year)

Just read @novicsara.bsky.social's upcoming MOTHER TONGUE and can already tell I'll be recommending it widely!

The personal story parts are smoothly paced with the history, science, and broader social context. It's hard to make storytelling look this easy

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/670270...

Name my 2026 lambs after famous language scientists? February 26, 2026 7:08 AM Subscribe Last year I asked for suggestions of famous dancers to name my lambs for, and that was fun, so here I am again, this time looking for names from famous people in all the arts/sciences related to language, this being my "L" year. Linguistics, lexicology, library science, all good. Expecting 30+ lambs so will need quite a few. Looking forward to naming the prettiest boy Tolkien. posted by Rhedyn to Writing & Language (41 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite

Oh and maybe the hosts of Lingthusiasm? I forget their names. posted by nat at 8:08 AM on February 26 [2 favorites] Since you mentioned library science, might I suggest Ettarh, after the recently deceased library scholar? She coined the term “vocational awe” which was a pivotal moment in the field. Also maybe Wilson for her recent groundbreaking translations of Homer. posted by Isingthebodyelectric at 8:11 AM on February 26 [3 favorites] Gretchen "Because Internet" McCulloch & Lauren Gawne of Lingthusiasm Schwa is a pretty name for a girl Kiki, Bouba and . . . Gavagai. L for Lancelot "Interglossa" Hogben M for Morris "215 language universals" Swadesh: bird - come - drink - earth - foot - give - hand etc. Local boy David "Holyhead" Crystal (The Story of English in 100 Words ) posted by BobTheScientist at 8:13 AM on February 26 [1 favorite]

You know, I always hoped that one day I'd be considered outstanding in my field

......I just didn't necessarily expect it to be quite this literally

ask.metafilter.com/389037/Name-...

An excerpt from Gretchen McCulloch's "Because Internet" that addresses the idea that the talk that we hear in polished texts like movies, news programs, audiobooks, and speeches bears little resemblance to what we experience in real life.

An excerpt from Gretchen McCulloch's "Because Internet" that extends the idea about unrealistic communication and draws important connections to how we learn to read and write - that educational experiences privilege polished writing that focus on minimizing errors rather than engaging in authentic acts of communication.

I'm most of the way through @gretchenmcculloch.com's #BecauseInternet and am *thoroughly* enjoying it. I keep coming back to her intro, though, and would love for the English teachers out there to spend some time sitting with the ideas here.

Using Lingthusiasm in the classroom Lingthusiasm makes a great addition to your linguistics teaching resources! Whether you’re teaching at a university, high school, middle school, online course, or other institution, Lingthusiasm is...

Filling out our classroom survey helps convince @superlinguo.bsky.social's bosses that she should keep making the show!

Plus, we periodically compile teaching ideas with Lingthusiasm for other instructors to get inspired by on our teaching page: lingthusiasm.com/teaching

Lingthusiasm in the Classroom First things first: Thanks so much for sharing Lingthusiasm with your students! We're keeping a record of how Lingthusiasm is being used in teaching. We may refer to data from this form in aggregate (...

Sometimes we hear from teachers and professors that they're using Lingthusiasm in the classroom, which is awesome!

If that's you, we've set up this short form so you can tell us about how you use it:

PSA to academics posting threads about your paper here: you can (and should) post the link to the paper in the first post. Your X/Twitter brain rot have have you thinking otherwise, but please free yourself of that. (Also you can call them 'blue-prints' if you want).

Update: whoa, that was so neat! Thank you!