ELI: Hi, and welcome to Linguistics After Dark. ELI: I'm Eli, JENNY: I'm Jenny, SARAH: and I'm Sarah. SARAH: If you've got a question about language and you want experts to answer it without having done any research whatsoever, we're your podcast. ELI: Settle in, grab a snack or a drink, and enjoy! SARAH: We're here, it's episode one! JENNY: Yay! ELI: Yeah! We did a couple of dry run episodes before this, it's probably never gonna surface unless we get real desperate for Patreon content. ELI: Hey, do we wanna learn a language thing? SARAH: Yeah! JENNY: Always. SARAH: Let's learn a language thing! SARAH: One of the things we want to do on this podcast is answer all of your questions, but before we do that, we want to share one of our favorite fun language things on every episode. So today's language thing of the day is ambiguity. Ambiguity in linguistics is when a given utterance or sound could m ean more than one thing. For instance, as everyone's favorite linguistics joke goes, I like syntactic ambiguity more than most people. Or, more than most people. ELI: I always knew you were a loner SARAH: ahahahahaha SARAH: I mean look, the thing about that sentence is it's true both ways. JENNY: That's fair. SARAH: So the ambiguity in that sentence is that in English, it could mean that I like syntactic ambiguity more than most people like syntactic ambiguity, which is possibly true, I don't know, I haven't interviewed everyone, but it could also mean that I like syntactic ambiguity more than I like most people, which is also not always true, but sometimes. ELI: So, syntactic ambiguity is I think probably one of the most fun kinds of ambiguity? because it leads to these interpretations where one is usually the one that is meant more often, but the other is is funny to think about. SARAH: mm-hmm ELI: but we also—there are other—there's like, phonetic ambiguity, and morphological ambiguity also, right? SARAH: Yeah. One of my favorite examples of morphological ambiguity is with the prefix "un-"? so like, an unlockable door is either a door that you can unlock, or it's a door that you can't lock. ELI: ooooh JENNY: Oh, that's so good. ELI: I like that one SARAH: you know, those are two very different types of doors, you really want to make sure that you get the right one when you're storing your valuables, or creating an emergency exit. ELI: that is the same thing as like an inflammable object, where it's a thing that you can that you can inflame, or set on fire, SARAH: right ELI: also a thing that is not able to be set on fire, SARAH: yes ELI: which, that's a… I think that's also a contranym? is—like a word that means the same thing as the opposite of itself SARAH: yes ELI: in a different sense SARAH: yes ELI: which we will save for another episode. SARAH: indeed ELI: so the morphological thing here happens because those two "un-"s and those two "in-"s are actually two different prefixes, right? SARAH: mm… they're the same prefix but the question is whether you've put the prefix on before the suffix. like, are you able to in-flame something,or are you in-able to flame it ELI: Oh, yes, so you could make like a little tree diagram, or something like that, that talks about how you… SARAH: yeah ELI: which order you put the suffix on and the prefix on SARAH: exactly JENNY: fun with affixes! SARAH: yes JENNY: always a good time ELI: Well, that was an unambiguous end to this segment. Do we want to answer some questions? SARAH: fantastic JENNY: okay! on to real language questions submitted by real listeners. JENNY: if you want to send us a question, email it in text to questions@linguisticsafterdark.com, or send us an audio recording of you speaking in your question aloud. Audio is especially handy for phonology and accent questions. ELI: Okay, let's dive right in. This is a question that was asked to me in person, actually, and I thought it was a cool question, and I wanted to start us off with it. So in the English word , as in how something smells, is it the or the that's silent? JENNY: that's so interesting and I'd never thought about it before SARAH: that's the kind of question that is, yeah, very interesting but also just makes me want to punch something. JENNY: [laughs] see, I really want to, like, look up the etymology now, and figure out where the compound for the sound comes from, and I'm not going to do that, because that would be, like— SARAH: —doing research JENNY: —stopping to research in the middle of this, and we don't do that. ELI: but it also is not just an sound, it is also a sound,and I believe historically it's a sound as well as an sound. JENNY: right… SARAH: Yeah. JENNY: Like it's— SARAH: because you can have with just an and with just a ,and apparently you can have with both of them, which is weird. ELI: I like the "apparently" on there, as though before now you were like, "oh my god, we—how does—" SARAH: well, because, normally, in English doesn't do that usually, is [sk] JENNY: right ELI: is it? SARAH: but then this time it isn't ELI: because there's like words like , or… I was gonna think of another word and I was like,"ascend" and it's like yes, that's the same—it's the same thing SARAH: okay, it's 'cause it's , that's annoying ELI: uh, your Latin is showing SARAH: no, just I forgot the whole soft C rules of English, it's fine ELI: is there a soft C rule of English? have I just internalized this rule? SARAH: yeah, usually, most of the time, if a is followed by an or an it makes an S-sound instead of a K-sound JENNY: wow, you just blew my mind ELI: there's probably a cool etymological reason for that like, the Phoenicians didn't know how to say "ooh" or something like that SARAH: I just—I have to go back to—did either of you go to kindergarten? ELI: yeah JENNY: I didn't! SARAH: well, okay, fine, you were homeschooled, that was a bad joke—but like, yeah, I was like very specifically taught that as a spelling rule ELI: the only spelling rule that I can remember is, you know, "I before E except after C," which I guess also now, now that I'm thinking of instances of s and s and s and stuff, like it does make sense? but also that rule, because of loanwords and other word sources, has more exceptions than it has words that follow it? so like, English spelling has rules, they're just not… SARAH: useful? ELI: …easy. [ELI and JENNY laugh] JENNY: yeah, I only actually did spelling for like, a week, when I was about nine, and then mom was like, "this is silly, you can spell all of the words this book is trying to teach you, we're not going to waste your time with that anymore," and I went back to just figuring out how to spell by reading things, or asking questions, so that is also the only spelling rule I know SARAH: fair enough JENNY: and wow, yeah, soft C, blowin' my mind ELI: as you said earlier, the reason I think this is a really cool question is because you can have S-E-N-T, you can have C-E-N-T,and you can have S-C-E-N-T,and all three of them sound exactly the same,"sent," "cent," and "skent." [SARAH and JENNY laugh] ELI: so, what do we think, is it the or the that's silent, and why is that a bad question? JENNY: I don't think it's a bad question, I think it's just that… like, English orthography is not phonetic, or not consistently phonetic, and this is one of the places where trying to read words in English like it's a phonetic writing system will mess you up, 'cause there isn't an answer like that ELI: yeah, there isn't a one-to-one correspondence between every character in a word and a sound that it is or isn't making SARAH: yeah ELI: you're right, English spelling doesn't work that way, which isn't bad, it's just not the point of English spelling. SARAH: yeah. I want to come back to that topic, possibly today, possibly not today ELI: listeners, ask us your questions about why things are spelled the way that they are, and we'll talk about English orthography, and I'm not gonna speak for everybody else, but why I love it. SARAH: yes JENNY: oh it's great ELI: We are anti-spelling reform on this podcast. Episode one, taking a stand. [SARAH laughs] JENNY: I feel like I should probably admit here that I was very firmly pro-English spelling reform, for like three years, when I was in my early teens? but I got over it. [SARAH laughs] SARAH: like one gets over the flu JENNY: we all have our phases ELI: I had, I had—I too had an awkward teenage spelling reform phase [JENNY laughs] SARAH: um, yeah, I don't think it's a bad question, it just makes me mad because there isn't an answer, JENNY: fair SARAH: and I don't like that. SARAH: and I also am going on record and I'm gonna sayit's the C that is silent because typically, we get words with that S-C-often-E pattern, like you said with "ascend" and "descend," I think we get a lot of those from Latin? where the C would have been pronounced like [k], then as Latin evolved, like later Latin pronounces either as a "shh" or as a S-soundand makes the C silent, and that's what we have brought into a lot of our English pronunciation, although based on what we think of as English phonetics rules,you could not definitively say whether the S or the C was the silent thing, I'm guessing, like 98% confidence, that the is the silent thing. ELI: being pronounced "shh," is that like where you get Commonwealth English "shed-ule" (schedule) from? SARAH: probably? I was thinking more of like, "crescendo," which I guess— ELI: I just always assumed that was Italian SARAH: I mean it is, but I think that Italian pronunciation came out of later Latin. ELI: So, Sarah, you're saying that it's the that's silent, or we should actually be pronouncing it "skent." SARAH: I'm saying it's the that's silent, I am not in favor of "skent," I think that's a silly word. ELI: Opportunity for a hot take and you let it pass by. I admire that. ELI: With that mystery solved, how about another question? JENNY: All right; this one was submitted to us by someone at CrossingsCon 2019,they attended the Linguistics After Dark panel, submitted a question,and we did not get to it because we got a whole lot of questions there,so all the questions we didn't answer, I saved. JENNY: the question is, "after learning what you have, have you tried to adjust the way you speak?" JENNY: So has our study of linguistics influenced us to try to consciously change how we talk? ELI: I think it helped me let go. ELI: you talk about a rebellious teenage spelling reform phase,like, I have always been interested in languageand I didn't know that linguistics really was a thing until I got to college and then I was like "OH! That. That—that is a thing, that is a name for a thing I'm interested in," and where you don't know that descriptivist linguistics exists, your only option, really, is grammatical peevery? and so I think that it really helped me, like, just not care and rejoice in the multitude of linguistic diversity that is around you every day and to like be experimental and like play with register, and I'd just be a little more conscious of the language that's happening around me? SARAH: yeah. I would say I… hm, what would I say. I would say it has influenced the way that I speak, but not because I'm going out of my way to change how I'm speaking, but because I'm much more conscious when I hear myself of what it is I'm saying. So if I pick up a sound or a word or a sentence structure that I didn't used to have, I'm now aware of how those things work, and so I'll be like, "oh, that's interesting, my vowels are doing weird things." SARAH: I could give you a whole episode just on the way my vowels have changed since I moved from Ohio. We're not gonna go there. but I don't make a lot of effort to consciously do things unless I hear something that I think is cool, but that's not because I was in linguistics, that's because when I hear things I think are cool, I steal them. ELI: Yes! so this is a—this is a thing! this is a thing,that when you hear something that's cool, you try it out, right? SARAH: mm-hmm ELI: like, if you are in a new region or you hear a new dialectical thing or regional slang or something like that, like I definitely picked up Upper Midwest "yet" when I was in college, and I noticed that I picked it up and I was like, "that's cool, it's shiny, I'm keeping it." SARAH: right JENNY: yeah, I definitely picked up the words "hella" and "y'all" in college and definitely got some teasing about both, because my friends and Iare all language nerds who like noticing how we and our friends talk and also teasing each other,and both of them are good, fun words, and so I've kept them.it's funny, 'cause I spent five years in Virginia as a kid and didn't pick up "y'all" then? but somehow in Southern California, I did. ELI: I mean, how did you feel about living in Virginia, right? like it's—we don't have to go that deep, but like it depends on how you felt about the place where you were, and sorta what stage in your life, right JENNY: yeah that's the thing, we left when I was eleven, I was not thinking about how I felt about living there or the linguistic trends in the people around me? ELI: there's the Nantucket Island study, right, about people with like, losing their accent before they leave for college andlike regaining their accent as they plan to move back after college. Was that Nantucket? SARAH: um, I don't remember. ELI: we don't do research here, but there's definitely a study from an island somewhere where that happened. SARAH: yeah, my partner is from Rhode Island, originally, and lived in the Midwest for a while, and now we're back in New England and I can always tell when he is on the phone with a family member or someone else who has a really strong New England accent, because it just—his voice just completely changes. He always has a little bit of one, compared to me, but it gets very heavy when he's talking to one of his family members and it's very funny. JENNY: my mom isn't originally from Virginia, and she lived all over as a kid so she doesn't have an accent anyone can pin down, but five minutes on the phone with some of her family from Georgia or one of her friends from Virginia, and she's got an accent to match theirs, it's kind of hilarious, actually, how fast it'll be, like, 0 to 60, "oh she is," like, you can tell exactly who she's talking to. ELI: so I feel like the moral of the story here is two-fold: one is we don't try to adjust the way we speak, because we know it's gonna happen to us anyway, and it's more fun to just kind of let it happen, SARAH: mm-hmm ELI: and number two is if you are in high school or early in college, and all of the things that we have said that we enjoyed doing sound like things that you enjoy doing, go find your linguistics department, because that's your new major. SARAH: Correct. I also want to add one other thing, which is there are a couple times I have consciously changed the way I speak, specifically because I realized I wasn't being understood. So, I am a high school teacher, and I grew up in an area where we had water fountains, and we wrote our assignments down in planners. And I would say those words to my class, I'd be like,"write down your homework, take out your planner," kid be like, "can I go get some water," and I'd say, "yeah, go to the water fountain that's right here, don't go to the fancy one down by the gym," and they would stare at me. And I had to consciously add the words "agenda," as in your planner, yourbook you write stuff down in, is called an agenda where I live now, which is so weird to me ELI: yeah SARAH: I tried like compromising and calling it an "agenda book,"and literally everyone was like "you are from another planet, please stop," so I've given up, it's an agenda, that's fine, and I also had to consciously add the phrase "bubbler." the phrase? it's a word. I had to consciously add the word "bubbler" ELI: NO SARAH: to my vocabulary, because ELI: AGH. SARAH: if I said "water fountain," they'd be like, "there are no fountains inside this building." ELI: you live in a "bubbler" area? SARAH: I do ELI: that's so weird SARAH: yeah ELI: oh JENNY: I had no idea that was in New England SARAH: yeah ELI: I thought I had escaped that when I moved back from Wisconsin SARAH: no, it's like, it's like southern New England,like, Boston-ish, and then like the South Shore possibly—probably into Rhode Island, and then like that one tiny area of Wisconsin ELI: right SARAH: and I have no idea why these two communities so far apart geographically are the only two places that have that word, but they do. ELI: so, I know why, there's a third region also and I know why. so there's a third region, which is part of Australia, that— JENNY: wha— SARAH: that was not where I was expecting that to be ELI: yes. so the third region is part of Australia and it also calls water fountains bubblers,and the reason why these three regions are linked,and I know this because I studied linguistics at the University of Wisconsin, is because that is—so the word "bubbler" comes from a particular model of water fountainthat Kohler made, and Kohler is based in Kohler, Wisconsinand they marketed this particular brand of drinking fountain, water fountain, to those three areas very heavilyand it stuck and genericized and people started calling water fountains "bubblers." SARAH: that is so weird JENNY: I would not have guessed that SARAH: why those three places in particular? ELI: I guess they were test markets for something SARAH: that is cool JENNY: Sarah, you said you tried to compromise with "agenda book"; did you try to compromise with "drinking fountain"? SARAH: um… probably? for me drinking fountain and water fountain are 100% interchangeable, so I don't remember,I just remember that whenever I used the word "fountain" they were like "there is not one," and I just gave up. JENNY: gotcha ELI: so the, the planner/agenda thing made me realize that I have a hyper-regionalism for this? JENNY: oh do tell ELI: yeah, for this item, which is a "Chandler's." ELI: there is a store—yeah, there is a store in the town where I grew upcalled Chandler's, and they sold an assignment notebook that literally everybody gotevery year to write your assignments down in,and they went out of business when I was in fifth or sixth gradeand there was a whole big deal, and the school had to print up and provide its own assignment notebooksbecause you couldn't get Chandler's anymore. ELI: and so we would say, "write that down in your Chandler's." SARAH: huh ELI: and it's probably gone now because now there's been enough time where nobody buys thesebut yeah if you ask people of my vintage or older,they'll tell you that yeah, assignment notebook, Chandler's. SARAH: neat! JENNY: that's so cool ELI: I actually—so I thought of another time when I have consciously changed my language based on something that I have learned, and this is being aware of the way that language can make people uncomfortable, or where unconscious language excludes people, JENNY: mmmm, mmhm ELI: and so I have consciously changed my language to not say, or to try to avoid saying "guys," and say "folks" or "people" or "all" to try to avoid saying "ladies and gentlemen," that kind of thing JENNY: right, that's a good point ELI: right, so that is a way that and I—I think that that's just general courtesy and inclusiveness? but when you study linguistics, you learn about the ways that language can be used to entrench power and so I think it was very obvious for me, the necessity to change my own language. JENNY: that makes a lot of sense, and you're right, that's one that I don't even consciously think about much at this point, but I've done the same thing.also you didn't mention, but using "they" instead of assuming, if I'm talking about like, "oh I saw this person earlier,"and not just assuming based on appearance that their pronouns are he or she, but just defaulting to "they," that was at least semi-conscious. ELI: yeah, I didn't experience that one consciously, but I do know that now it's jarring for meto read a text where the epicene pronoun is not "they." JENNY: oh, same, for sure SARAH: can we define the word "epicene"? ELI: sure; epicene is not gender ambiguous, but rather gender-unknown, so it's the pronoun that you use when you are talking about somebody whose gender you don't know. SARAH: cool JENNY: yeah, I think I was mostly conscious of it because my linguistics professor explicitly talked about it at one point? it was a language of gender and sexuality class and she said something, and she was clearly trying to point out that we all have these biases in the way we speak that we don't think about, but the way she framed it was essentially, "when you, y'know, you see this person—" and just like, set up the scenario, and she was expecting the class to say "he," and everyone just kind of said in unison, "oh, they—" or "what do they want," or whatever the appropriate response was, and she didn't believe us, and she was like, "you—you might think you do, but actually, I bet most of you would default to—" and we got into this whole like mini-debate about whether or not at this point most of us in the class would default to "they," and after that I started actually paying attention more and it was early enough in my making the shift that I think of the shift as semi-conscious, but it didn't start that way and it's long since become part of my unconscious, like, speech patterns again. SARAH: all right, so, our next question is from Beth galadryels,and she asked, "how does pluralizing superhero names work?is it "Batsman" or "Batmen,"and would be different for "Spider-Man" because there was a hyphen in there, what do you do with that?" ELI: this is an important question, JENNY: oh for sure ELI: especially with our tendency in comics these days to have multiple universes. The Spider-Man question in particular is important for Into the Spider-Verse, I feel. JENNY: yes, fair SARAH: yes JENNY: I feel like—actually—since you mentioned Into the Spider-Verse, I was thinking, I feel like I've most frequently seen "Spider-People"? because you've also got Gwen and Peni running around. SARAH: plus I haven't seen it but aren't there also some Spider-not-humans? ELI: well, there's a Spider-Pig SARAH: okay ELI: also you haven't seen Into the Spider-Verse? SARAH: dude I suck at movies ELI: okay we're seeing that JENNY: I know but so do I, and I still saw it and it was amazing SARAH: yeah but you live in a comic-book family JENNY: yes okay fair ELI: Sarah, we are going to find a way to make sure that you watch this movie, because it's a great movie JENNY: yes SARAH: I know, JENNY: it's so good SARAH: I'm not, like, avoiding it on purpose, I just ELI: we will create the environment JENNY: like if it has to be a Thing, we will set up a thing so that it happens, if it's not going to happen passively, because Spider-Verse is very important SARAH: excellent, I look forward to it ELI: I also—I feel like Spider-Gwen would a hundred percent object to being included in "Spider-Men"? JENNY: yeah ELI: I feel like if people were like, "hey look! it's a group of Spider-Men!" she would be like, "I'm going to punch you now" JENNY: yeah, that sounds about right SARAH: well and I feel like if—I mean I guess for Batman, with a lot of—with all of the differentother characters you have, like, the Batfamily? JENNY: mmhm SARAH: I could also totally believe "Batpeople"? SARAH: but then I guess— ELI: BATPEOPLE SARAH: but like— JENNY: I think it's just "Bats" at that point. SARAH: also true. So "Spider-People" also works well but like, if you're not considering necessarily multiple universes or multiple characters with the same powers or some other kind of relationship, but like just different incarnations of literally the same person, like how you have Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland all playing Spider-Man, do you say "their Spider-Men are different but equally valid," do you say "their different Spider-Mans are all different but equally valid," do you say one of those and say "but I like Andrew Garfield the best," I dunno. ELI: I cannot—I cannot deal with "Spider-Mans" [SARAH laughs] ELI: that's—no. whatever the answer is, it's not "Spider-Mans" okay SARAH: okay JENNY: see I'm actually okay with "Spider-Mans," because I hear it and assume like that we're talking to like a toddler? or some other small child who is still figuring out how plurals work? so it's definitely not right in my head, but it's wrong in the kind of way that sounds like a… like an English-language learner mistake. SARAH: mmmm. See, I actually like "Spider-Mans," possibly because this is something I learned consciously as a linguist, butwhen we pluralize proper nouns, or whenwe pluralize things that are in a different meaning from their original one, we often don't do it following the exact same pattern, or if we make past-tense verbs—so in baseball if you hit a fly ball and it gets caught, you say that "the batter flied out," ELI: oh, that's true SARAH: you don't say that "he flew out," because you've taken the verb "fly," you've changed it into a noun to describe the ball, and then you've taken that noun and changed it into a verb with a new meaning,and so it doesn't retain its original past tense. ELI: oh, yeah SARAH: and also, this also reminds me of like, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the hockey team, which—there's not actually, I don't think, a linguistic reason why they chose to keep the F, instead of going to V like we expect from "leaves," but this idea of multiple Spider-Mans feels, to me, similar SARAH: so like I guess I would interpret the phrase "Spider-Men" to be like, Peter Parker and Miles Morales hanging out together are two Spider-Men, but Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland are three Spider-Mans, becausethey all played Peter Parker JENNY: iiinteresting ELI: okay SARAH: and I don't know if that's just a distinction I've arbitrarily made, but that's how it feels to me ELI: I feel like this is like a fish-fishes kind of a distinction here. okay, yeah actually, no, I think you've convinced me SARAH: heyyy ELI: I can see Spider-Mans as different distinct incarnations or exhibits of "a Spider-Man" JENNY: yeah I think I'm sold too ELI: I do want to talk about Batsman, though SARAH: yeah JENNY: yes because that's delightful ELI: it is delightful. So we have "Attorney General," because what we wanted to say is "general attorney" but for some reason—a reason that probably is related to Latin—we put the adjective after the noun. But what this does is it gives us a fun blueprint to pluralize things that break into two pieces in a way that's playful, and so even though "Bat" is definitely modifying "man," you can have "Batsman," and it will be funny. SARAH: there's also the example of like, "siblings-in-law" or "parents-in-law," where some people do put the plural on the noun part, like brother or sister, and they'll say, "oh I have four brothers-in-law," because there also, the adjective kind of thing, the modifier, is coming later, but not because we've decided to be Latin, just because that's actually where it goes in that particular English phrase ELI: but some people do say "brother-in-laws" or "sister-in-laws" SARAH: right, so, it's interesting because some people still interpret that as noun, optional plural, adjective, and some people have totally taken the whole hyphenated three word phrase and been like, "that is a noun, I can put the plural on the end" ELI: do we think that that's influenced by "in-laws," like, "oh, my in-laws are coming over"? because I think even people who would say like "brothers-in-law" would never be like, "my sin-laws are coming." [SARAH and JENNY laugh] SARAH: absolutely SARAH: well, absolutely to "people who say "brothers-in-law" would not say "sin-law"," I will put myself out there as an example of that, because I definitely say "brothers-in-law" but I also don't say "sin-law" so I don't know if it's—I don't know if there's a influence one direction or the other, but I would totally believe it if there was. ELI: I also do appreciate the idea of "Batsman" as being like Batman but having multiple bats SARAH: yes ELI: like Bats—Batsman is—well actually hold on, so like a batman is—isn't a batman like a valet? right? JENNY: something like that, yeah SARAH: what? JENNY: there's, um, the English term, I feel like I've mostly seen it in like period novels—Lord Peter Wimsey, I think his manservant used to be his batman when they were like in the military in World War I, but I don't know what the actual definition is because I've only picked it up from context, but it is something like, like, a manservant or something like that, SARAH: huh, interesting JENNY: and I feel like there's something really good here,like I think we're onto something, because I'm pretty sure it's Batman canon that Alfred Pennyworth feeds the bats in the Batcave—like the flying ones, not just the people ones, I guess he does also feed the people ones frequently ELI: so, he is Batman's batman, and also Batman's batsman. JENNY: I think he is Batman's batman, and also Batman's batsman. [SARAH laughs] ELI: I—we can do nothing else for this question, we need to move on JENNY: yes nope, that is the perfect ending SARAH: indeed, also the title of this episode is "Batman's Batsman." SARAH: And on that note, JENNY: On that note, our last question ties in very nicely to the fun with ambiguity we were talking about earlier. JENNY: This one was sent to us through email by our friend Amy. I've condensed it slightly from its original form,but she sent a quote from a style guide, or submission guide, in a magazine:"The purpose of this magazine is to inform.You should therefore write in a clear, informal style, avoiding jargon and acronyms."and her question is, "usually I hear "informal" as "not formal,"but in that context it sounds like "inform-al."are these words all related? are there two meanings to the word "informal"?" SARAH: yeah ELI: affix ambiguity! yay! JENNY: whoo! SARAH: Affix ambiguity is correct. I'm gonna jump in here with my Latin nerd self, JENNY: oh good SARAH: I am almost certain that what has happened here is exactly what we were just saying with affix ambiguity because we have "formal" and then "informal,"so that like as she says, normally we interpret that word as meaning "not formal,"and I think that is—what that is—"inform" as a verb also has that prefix "in-" but in that situation, even though it's the same prefix, it does have a second meaning. SARAH: even in Latin, the word "in" and the prefix "in-" could either mean "in" or "into" as we think of it, or it could mean "against" or "not." and that basically just depended on context, but because we have the verb "inform," we can tell that in that place, the "in-" has attached to the stem "form,"and it means like "give shape, give information to, or into, something." SARAH: versus "formal," where we've attached the suffix first, meaning "to do with form, to do with style,"and then "in-" as in "not that." SARAH: so probably they are etymologically related,but I think what magazine here is doing is actually just having a little bit of fun with the fact that these words look alike and sound alike, and it's a nice—like, it's a nice kind of mnemonic device for their style guide, which is "if you want to inform someone of something you should be informal, because if you're too high-falutin' with your language, people don't actually learn." ELI: yeah, I think you're right, whoever wrote this is having a little bit of fun with these two words. I have to ask, though, has anybody encountered the word "informal" meaning… describing something that informs? SARAH: no JENNY: I've never seen it like that before SARAH: the word I hear that means that is "informative" ELI: yes, or informational SARAH: yes, although, going back to the ambiguity thing, does "informative"—could it—also mean something that doesn't influence you in a formative way? ELI: I feel like my need for that word is not very often? [SARAH and JENNY laugh] SARAH: well, right, which is why it doesn't ELI: but also, there is… like there is a thing where you have the "in-" and you have "-ative," and it may be such that "in-" can't happen after "-ative," right,you might have to have "unformative" at that point. SARAH: oh, that's true ELI: because there—there is this thing where you get an order of affixes, where "in-" meaning "not" has to be very early SARAH: mm-hm ELI: and if you don't get that, you have to use "un-" SARAH: yeah ELI: right SARAH: yeah I've never… I've never thought about that, but it is quite possibly a thing ELI: yeah, that is a morphological thing that I remember, and remember having my mind blown by, that sometimes you have to use "un-" because it's too late to use "in-" JENNY: yeah, wow, I—this is the first time I'm realizing that, but—wow. ELI: well and so like, you actually, if you have "uninformative" at this pointthe "in-" in "inform", like, "inform,"I feel it has been lexicalized, like, that most people wouldn't really, like, "the "in-" in "information"" SARAH: yeah ELI: I think people wouldn't actually count that as an affix, but you can't say "ininformative," you have to say "uninformative." JENNY: right SARAH: some of it is like phonological too, because "ininformative" is hard to say. ELI: That's true. All right! shall we talk about the puzzler? SARAH: what puzzler? ELI: Ah, good question. So, every episode we're going to have a puzzler, and sometimes it will be linguistics-related, and sometimes it won't be, it's basically just up to our capricious whims,and we will reveal the answer to the puzzler in the next episode, so you have between one episode and the next to work it out or figure it out or cheat and look it up. SARAH: we're not gonna stop you ELI: so we don't have an answer for last time's puzzler, because we didn't have a last time, but we have a puzzler for this episode, and it goes like this: so for this week's puzzler, we're gonna be talking about English spelling. There are a bunch of words in English that are spelled with two consecutive double letters, anybody think of a couple off the top of their head? JENNY: "raccoon" SARAH: "coffee" ELI: "bassoon" is the one that I think of, or "balloon," which are basically the same word. So there's a whole bunch with two consecutive double letters, but it's pretty rare to find an English word with three consecutive double letters, so puzzler for this week is "find one of those words." SARAH: and we won't stop you from looking them up on the internet, but it's definitely cheating if you do that. We're not going to come to your house and stop you, though, so. ELI: yeah, be your own person, make your own choices. SARAH: also I would just like to say that when you mentioned bassoon and balloon being basically the same word,immediately in my head I saw a person playing a latex balloon with their fingerslike a musical instrument. JENNY: Oh, see, that's funny, because I was picturing someone trying to play a bassoon, but like, it was filled with helium and slowly lifting them into the sky. [SARAH laughs] ELI: I intended none of those things, and I'm delighted in all of that. SARAH: on that note, uh, enjoy our bassoon balloons, and whatever else you thought of, and thanks for listening! Our episode is now over. JENNY: Linguistics After Dark is produced by Emfozzing Enterprises;audio editing is done by Eli, question wrangling and transcriptions are done by Jenny, and show notes are done by Sarah. ELI: Our show is entirely listener-supported;you can help us by visiting patreon.com/emfozzing, E-M-F-O-Z-Z-I-N-G,and by telling your friends about us. SARAH: Today we want to say thanks to these awesome patrons who are already supporting us on Patreon: we have tptigger, Bryton, Inga, Geoff, Dre, Bex, and Mitch. ELI: thank you, everyone! JENNY: you can find all our episodes and show notes online at linguisticsafterdark.com,or on all your favorite podcast directories. don't forget to rate us, too! ELI: And send those questions, text or audio, to questions@linguisticsafterdark. com, or tweet at us @LXADpodcast. You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram as well @LXADpodcast. SARAH: And until next time, if you weren't consciously aware of your tongue in your mouth, now you are. [beep] ELI: that's cool! it's all good, we can fix it in post [SARAH laughs] JENNY: okay then SARAH: that is the motto of scripted broadcasting, yes [beep] SARAH: alright, that sounds like the end of this [ELI laughs] ELI: ahhh, SEGMENT OVER. SARAH: [laughs] all right, Jenny, you're up [beep] ELI: for more about "Sin Law," our upcoming Patreon goal for "Lawyers After Dark" will soon be met [SARAH and JENNY laugh] SARAH: tell your friends about us, have them give us money, we'll bring on some lawyers and make them answer this. [beep] SARAH: I just remember that whenever I used the word "fountain," they were like "there is not one," and I just gave up JENNY: gotcha [beep] ELI: it—no, it would have to be like a—it's an oblique, isn't it, so it doesn't fucking matter? [beep] SARAH: I don't know, I actually really enjoyed the one that we edited together, I feel like, especially the question about the X-Men doing the Great British Bake-Off [beep] SARAH: like how you have Andrew Garfield and… the other people who play Spider-Man in movies, why can't I think of their names, ELI and JENNY: Tobey Maguire? SARAH: that one, yeah JENNY: and Tom Holland, I think, is the other one SARAH: Tom Holland. I'm gonna try that all again ELI: yup SARAH: [laughs] [beep]