Be gay do crime but in Barvaria and we're putting these everywhere

For those of you who don't know about the current discussions in German politics:

German is a heavily gendered language, with distinct female and male forms for a lot of words. While it's been pretty common to just use the 'generic male' term for, say, occupations (i.e. just using the male version of a word to refer to mixed groups of people), there's been a push in the last few years to use more gender-inclusive (or gender-sensitive, whatever you want to call it) versions of terms.

In written form, this usually means that you'll 'merge' the two terms with a * indicating that you're referring to a mixed group.

For example, if you're talking about teachers, instead of just using the generic male term Lehrer, or using both male and female (Lehrer und Lehrerinnen), you just write Lehrer*Innen (or LehrerInnen, or Lehrer_Innen, depending on preference).

The Bavarian state authorities, who are traditionally Christian maniacs, have now decided that this is unacceptable. They're arguing that this inclusive language goes against freedom of speech, that you need to be able to "have unrestricted discourse in a liberal society", and that an ideologically-influenced language like this would prohibit that. And so, in the name of freedom of speech, they are banning the use of the gender inclusive terms by schools, unis and state officials. It's as insane as it sounds.

This shit has been going on for like three years in schools in Saxony. I once got an official warning by my headmaster because I referred to students as Schüler*innen in a mail to a parent. (The parent complained.)

As far as I know, this rule refers only to "schools and their project partners", meaning that as long as a company adresses parents/kids in a school context (for an internship for example) they are forbidden from using this kind of gendered language.

This includes also projects working with students on LGBT+ topics, which is so stupid I don't even have words for it.

Actually, interesting addition: since students aren't really allowed to use it either, at my school some kids started using the female form as generic. I think it's funny as shit.

Linguistics on podcasts! Gender Reveal from March 4, 2024. From the episode description:

Tuck chats with linguist Ariana Steele (they/them). Topics include: 

New Research Article: Creating Inclusive Linguistics Communication: Crash Course Linguistics

This handbook chapter is a behind-the-scenes of how the Crash Course Linguistics video series came together. I’m really proud that this article includes contributions from the linguistics writing team, including my co-writer Gretchen McCulloch, and our fact checker Jessi Grieser, but also from members of the Complexly team, who produced the show, including Nicole Sweeney, Rachel Alatalo, Hannah Bodenhausen and Ceri Riley. As with the actual videos themselves, this was a dream team. Lingcomm that is inclusive doesn’t just happen as an accident - in this article we discuss some of the ways we set things up to make the best series we could.

This chapter is also a dream project, because it’s part of the excellent double feature: Inclusion in Linguistics and Decolonizing Linguistics, both edited by Anne Charity Hudley, Christine Mallinson, & Mary Bucholz for Oxford University Press. These books are both be available through digital open access. They include some of your new favouite classics about the state of linguistics in research, education and outreach, even if you don’t know that just yet.

Abstract

This case study vignette provides an insight into the choices made in the writing of Crash Course Linguistics (Complexly/PBS 2020). This series of sixteen 10-minute videos cover core introductory level topics for English speakers who consume online content. We discuss how the topics were selected and arranged into a series order. We also discuss the ways we actively built inclusion into the series workflow and content, including in the team that worked on the content, the language examples selected and topics covered. Throughout we discuss the challenges and benefits of working in a collaborative team that includes a media production company and linguists with a commitment to public engagement and communication linguistics to new audiences. Sharing these observations about putting Crash Course Linguistics together is part of our commitment to using public communication to advance the standard of public engagement with the field, and the field’s approach to inclusive practice.

Reference

Gawne, Lauren, Gretchen McCulloch, Nicole Sweeney, Rachel Alatalo, Hannah Bodenhausen, Ceri Riley & Jessi Grieser. 2024. Creating Inclusive Linguistics Communication: Crash Course Linguistics. In Anne H. Charity Hudley, Christine Mallinson, and Mary Bucholtz (Eds), Inclusion in Linguistics, 383-396. Oxford University Press. [Open Access]

See Also:

Bonus 86: Inner voice, mental pictures, and other shapes for thoughts

When you think about your daily life -- say, going grocery shopping -- are your thoughts shaped like an inner voice or music, mental images or video, inner feelings or other sensory awareness, or unsymbolized mental impressions? Most people have some combination of these things, but the degree to which you literally visualize a bright red apple or mentally hear yourself saying "and don't forget the apples" is something that varies widely from person to person. But until we start asking about it, it's easy to assume that other people's thought-shapes are formed just like our own, and that any impressions to the contrary are just people speaking metaphorically.

In this bonus episode, Gretchen and Lauren get enthusiastic about the forms that our thoughts take inside our heads. We talk about an academic paper from 2008 called "The phenomena of inner experience", which asked 30 university students to write down the shape of their thoughts at random intervals throughout the day, and how their results differ from the 2023 Lingthusiasm listener survey questions on your mental pictures and inner voices. We also talk about more unnerving methodologies, like temporarily paralyzing people and then scanning their brains to see if the inner voice sections still light up (they do!). Listen to this episode about the shapes of thought, and get access to many more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon.

In honour of Vowel Month please take this highly serious poll about your favourite vowels!!!

tumblr polls only have 10 options so we're going with the weird bois, sorry schwa, it's not my fault danny j didn't love you

(don't know what these symbols mean? vote on vibes or listen to our friend danny jones saying all the vowels on an old school record here)

kind of interesting how the boop feature makes tumblr feel so much more active? like idk usually you see people reblogging stuff but you never know if that's a queue and you forget that there are real people behind the blogs. but if ur getting booped? somebody saw you and acknowledged your existence. wild.

the boops are like a pure instantiation of phatic expression and I'm really excited to have a new one!

to be clear, things like the "like" button are also phatic but the boops are phatic in a different way and I just think that's!!! cool!!!

I've been thinking about this, and I think it's also key that in order to boop a user, they have to have opted in, and anyone can opt out at any time.

in other words, by virtue of being able to boop someone, you know they are willing to be booped and likely even welcome it. In other words, the presence of the boop button serves as a "nonverbal" cue, almost a type of digital body language that signals a willingness to be interacted with!

I noticed a lot of posts talking about how the boops represent being able to annoy one's mutuals or followers that people don't talk to directly under normal conditions, and I believe this is why. there's often no clear signal that interaction is welcome, and more sociable users on this site do have a culture of not wanting to overstep those bounds -- to the point that perfectly normal questions are often asked anonymously for fear that there would be social consequences. I would argue that sending an ask off anon feels risky because it can be perceived as familiar, and people are wary of seeming over-familiar.

the boops escape that element of site culture, and I think it's because of the implication of the boop button's presence. it invites booping!

and in order to play the game and boop others you have to open up yourself to being booped, so there's also social reciprocity helping to drive participation.

I agree about the opt-out button, and I also think that the boop-o-meter providing counts of boops sent/received also contributes to this. Like, you know that anyone who's enabled boops is most likely excited about seeing Number Go Up so you booping them is doing them a tiny favour and you don't have to second-guess the meta-message you're sending by booping someone because you know that they know you're also trying to make your Number Go Up.

Personally, I started off only booping my mutuals (booping the moots), but then a) I realized very quickly that it would be hard to get any badges that way and b) a lot of people were reblogging things about how they were booping everyone who crossed their dash so I started just booping and booping back people indiscriminately.

(Though I will say, as a fairly large blog that's been around for a while, my experience may not have been entirely typical as I did get all the way to BLR received yesterday so apologies if I wasn't able to boop you back. But even then it was still a well-designed experience and my activity feed didn't feel entirely overwhelmed with boops, it was just glorious chaos. I think the boop-o-meter converting to words/kaomoji after a bit also made it feel less competitive after a while.)

my theory is that boops are so great because they are fullfilling two very deep-seated desire of tumblr users: 1. being able to interact with your mutuals without actually having to talk to each other and 2. being very annoying

boop linguistics post

So this is what would happen if I could click kudos more than once

I think the thing that also fascinates me about the boop as compared to the like button, at a communicative level, in a way that evokes the old facebook poke feature, is that the boop is unteathered to the specific post or message, it's purely sent to the user and you have no idea where people are seeing you to boop you. something about that contextlessness is just. delightful.

kind of interesting how the boop feature makes tumblr feel so much more active? like idk usually you see people reblogging stuff but you never know if that's a queue and you forget that there are real people behind the blogs. but if ur getting booped? somebody saw you and acknowledged your existence. wild.

the boops are like a pure instantiation of phatic expression and I'm really excited to have a new one!

to be clear, things like the "like" button are also phatic but the boops are phatic in a different way and I just think that's!!! cool!!!

I like the expression new-fangled. I don't know what it means for something to be fangled, but I sure as hell know it was recent

It’s from the Old English word feng, which can mean “to take”, or also “to grasp, hold, or embrace”. So something that’s newfangled is something that was taken up recently.

The reason it’s using this pretty archaic root is that it’s an older word than a lot of people think. Here it is in the Canterbury Tales.

Minutes after posting: "Why did I write archaic when I could have gone with old-fangled?"

Reblog to fangle this post

one of those false etymology posts but with the actual etymology of the word

I was today years old when I realized helicopter is helico- (as in helix) -pter (as in pterodactyl) 😂

sooo was anyone going to tell me that the -ter in daughter is the same suffix as the -ther in mother father and brother but under an exception to grimm's law or like

OMG WAIT I FIGURED IT OUT

IT'S "LASER" BECAUSE IT'S LIGHT AMPLIFICATION BY STIMULATED EMISSION OF RADIATION

WHAT???

official linguistics post

you're never going to believe this but the -ter in sister is an exception!

it's from swésōr and they think that it shifted to -ter by analogy with all those other -ter kinship terms!

et tu, boopte?

@allthingslinguistic

linguistics.

Boops boops

Boops boops Boops boops boops boops Boops boops

aka (the) Boops boops (that) Boops boops boops (then in turn) boops (another) Boops boops.

oh no I think I have to do linguistics of boop today

.

.

.

boopguistics

(edited to add: please reblog or reply or something with your favourite boop compounds or creative usages I can't hope to find them all myself)

boopguistics update:

boop the moot feels almost like vowel harmony? yod-dropping harmony?

Boops boops Boops boops boops boops Boops boops is the new Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Bring this back on the first boopsday for obvious reasons.