The Vocal Fries

Send us Fan MailWe talk with Dr Lorna Gibb about her newest book, Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages.Steven Pinker:Harvard Derangement Syndromevs. LSAJews and IQSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at vocalfriespod@gmail.comThanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie 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 PDTBender v. BubeckInventing Intelligence: On the History of Complex Information Processing and Artificial Intelligence in the United States in the Mid-Twentieth CenturyRoxane Gay's anti-AI stanceThe TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence The Conduit MetaphorKevin Roose's Conversation with BingMystery AI Hype Theatre 3000 Intro:UK ruling on the legal definition of "woman"JK Rowling looking smugSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at vocalfriespod@gmail.comThanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Gabe Henry, author who studies the history of simplified spelling, explores centuries of attempts to make English easier to spell. He traces reform movements from Noah Webster to Mark Twain, examines quirky proposals and numeric alphabets, and considers how spelling ties to nation-building, literacy, advertising, and digital shorthand. Short-term gimmicks contrast with slow, bottom-up change driven by texting and youth usage.

Send us Fan MailCarrie 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 USSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at vocalfriespod@gmail.comThanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan and Carrie talk with Massimiliano Canzanella about the Neapolitan language and how it is perceived in Italy.Asian languages and the LA firesSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at vocalfriespod@gmail.comThanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie 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 incarcerationSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at vocalfriespod@gmail.comThanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan 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 SilenceIntro from our patron René:Barron's: MP makes her first speech in sign languageSpeech of the yearSupport the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at vocalfriespod@gmail.comThanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailCarrie 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 showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at vocalfriespod@gmail.comThanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

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 TimesWhy Does Trump Do That Weird Capitalization Thing? HuffPost (sometimes Gillon is misspelled as Gillion, as per uzh)Support the showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at vocalfriespod@gmail.comThanks for listening and keep calm and fry on

Send us Fan MailMegan 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 showContact us:Threads us @vocalfriespodBluesky us @vocalfriespod.bsky.socialEmail us at vocalfriespod@gmail.comThanks for listening and keep calm and fry on