Why is English always changing—and why does that change so often make us uneasy? In this fascinating conversation, we’re joined by linguist, author, and University of Michigan Dean Professor Anne Curzan to explore how English evolves, who influences that change, and what our reactions to new words and usages reveal about culture, identity, and power.
Anne shares insights from her latest book Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Says-Who-Kin…) , and unpacks everything from the rise of pronouns and slang to the hidden rules behind texting, emojis, and intensifiers like “super.” Along the way, Anne explains why dictionaries don’t tell us how to use language—they reflect how we already use it.
Whether you’re a dedicated word-lover, a reformed “grammando,” or simply curious about how English works, this episode offers a lively, accessible look at the stories behind the way we speak today.
In This Episode
• Why language change can feel unsettling—and why it shouldn’t
• The origins of words like grammando and wordie
• Americanisms in the UK and Britishisms making their way into the US
• Why prescriptive grammar rules (like not ending sentences with prepositions) often don’t reflect how English actually works
• How kids naturally acquire grammar—and what their “mistakes” teach us
• What dictionaries really do (and don’t do)
• How texting, punctuation, and emojis function as a new kind of tone and gesture
• The evolution of singular they—and why it’s not a modern invention
• Why language is more like fashion than we think
• How technological change and global contact influence the pace of language evolution
About Anne Curzan
Professor Anne Curzan is the Geneva Smitherman Collegiate Professor of English, Linguistics, and Education at the University of Michigan, where she also served as the dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts from 2019 – 2024. Her most recent book is Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words (2024).
Resources & Links
• Book: Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Says-Who-Kin…)
• Anne’s website: (https://annecurzan.com/)
[…]
Before there was English, or Latin, or Czech, or Hindi, there was a language that they all have in common, which we call Proto-Indo-European. Linguists have long been fascinated by the quest to get a glimpse into what Proto-Indo-European must have looked like through careful comparisons between languages we do have records for, and this very old topic is still undergoing new discoveries.
In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about the process of figuring out Proto-Indo-European with Dr. Danny Bate, public linguist, host of the podcast A Language I Love Is…, and author of the book Why Q Needs U. We talk about why figuring out the word order of a 5000-year-old language is harder than figuring out the sounds, and a great pop linguistics/history book we’ve both been reading that combines recent advances in linguistic, archaeological, and genetic evidence to reexamine where these ancient Proto-Indo-European folks lived: Proto by Laura Spinney. We also talk about Danny’s own recent book on the history of the alphabet, featuring fun facts about C, double letters, and izzard!
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.
Announcements:
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about celebratory days, years, decades, and more with some relationship to linguistics! We recently learned that people in the UK have been celebrating National Linguistics Day on November 26th and many lingcommers are excited about the idea of taking those celebrations international: World Linguistics Day, anyone? What we learned putting this episode together is that celebratory days take off when groups of people decide to make them happen so…let’s see how many different locations around the world we can wish each other Happy World Linguistics Day from this year!
Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.
Here are the links mentioned in the episode:
Danny Bate on Bluesky and Twitter
‘Why Q Needs U’ by Danny Bate, on Amazon and Bookshop (affiliate links)
Danny Bate’s ‘A Language I Love Is…’ podcast (Gretchen’s episode about Montreal French and Lauren’s episode about Yolmo)
‘Proto; How One Ancient Language Went Global’ by Laura Spinney on Amazon and Bookshop (affiliate links)
‘Proto-Indo-European and Laura Spinney’ on Danny Bate’s ‘A Language I Love Is…’ Podcast
Simon Roper on YouTube
Jackson Crawford on YouTube
Wikipedia entry for ‘Czech language’
Wikipedia entry for ‘Old Church Slavonic’
You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.
To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.
You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.
Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr.
[…]
msamba 