Episode 3: The Gospel of the Wug

Linguistics After Dark

​Wherein we make wugability happen and invoke rule three.

Jump right to:

• 3:40 The Part Where We Say The Title
• 20:22 Are clicks consonants?
• 30:22 Why do people like some words and hate others?
• 43:53 An uncharacteristically serious discussion about conversational styles and their relation or lack thereof to gender
• 65:18 The puzzler: What do the words ASSESS/BANANA/DRESSER/GRAMMAR/POTATO/REVIVE/UNEVEN/VOODOO have in common?

Covered in this episode:

• The parts of linguistics we secretly don’t like
• The ablaut of yeet
• An inadvertent All The Stations shoutout
• Jenny just says Walrus
• Send us law questions!
• The official LxAD Linguistics Hot Takes
• Clicks, Ingressives, Ejectives, and... the other ones
• Aaron/Erin is the new Mary/marry/merry
• Phonesthemes
• Bubu and Kiki
• Our show notes have research!
• Words are fake, but there’s a spectrum of reality
• It’s like chai, but coffee
• Meta language is important even for laypeople!
• High school teachers know the dank memes of today—sometimes
• If you say the food "herb" with an "h" you're wrong but valid
• Optimality theory easter egg?

Links and other post-show thoughts:

• The original Wug Test by Jean Berko Gleason
• So far Sarah has not found the German study that she referenced, but has learned a lot about The Discourse around what constitutes irregularity in German. If you have information about this, let us know!
• ⟨snuck⟩ is indeed newer than ⟨sneaked⟩
• Ohio 2
• Choose your favorite wug plural
• JBG’s Wug Store
• Vowels are still a hot mess
• The Other Consonants are called pulmonic consonants, which means that technically ejectives and ingressives are also not made using air from your lungs. We learned a thing.
• Phonesthemes are super cool!
• Bubu and kiki are also super cool!
• Another optimality theory joke
• There are new episode-specific highlights on our Instagram, with fancy highlight art!

Ask us questions:

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

Credits:

Linguistics After Dark is produced by Emfozzing Enterprises. Eli edits, Jenny transcribes, and Sarah does 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 :)