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SMNTY Classics: Feminism and the English Language with Wordslut · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't become to
0:07
Speaker 1: stuff I never told you production of iHeart Radio. And
0:18
Speaker 1: today we are bringing back a classic episode that we
0:21
Speaker 1: did with the author of a Word Slut, A Feminist
0:24
Speaker 1: Guide to taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montil,
0:28
Speaker 1: and we're bringing it back based on our recent episode
0:30
Speaker 1: about euphemisms about women masturbating, and there were so many
0:37
Speaker 1: good ones there were, and it it's kind of become
0:42
Speaker 1: a problem for me because now I can't stop thinking
0:44
Speaker 1: of other euphemisms. I know, not necessarily about that, but
0:49
Speaker 1: it's infiltrated my life, is what I'm trying to say.
0:53
Speaker 1: And then I got like a very irresistible urge that
0:56
Speaker 1: I'm trying to ignore to explain my orgasm and how
1:03
Speaker 1: to or oh, I could do the how to if
1:06
Speaker 1: you want it, like you might need to do a
1:08
Speaker 1: how to. Oh Oh my gosh, I have I have
1:11
Speaker 1: it down. But no, I was more like the crest
1:15
Speaker 1: and falls of an orgasms. There is enough and how
1:23
Speaker 1: it can last for an hour because I'm sure people
1:25
Speaker 1: some people are listening and like there's no where that's possible, like,
1:28
Speaker 1: oh it is, but it does have like ups and
1:31
Speaker 1: downs it's kind of flowing, yes, but it's continuous. But
1:36
Speaker 1: also the highs and the loaves. Anyway, I'm really digging
1:39
Speaker 1: my whole much deeper now. But yes, we wanted to
1:43
Speaker 1: bring this back because I do think there was a
1:45
Speaker 1: conversation we had in here that is related. So please enjoy. Hey,
1:55
Speaker 1: this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stepman ever
1:58
Speaker 1: told you protection of I Heart Radio. Today, we are
2:11
Speaker 1: very excited to be joined by Amanda Montell, who is
2:15
Speaker 1: a writer and a linguist, an author of the book
2:17
Speaker 1: Words Sluts, a Feminist Guide to taking Back the English Language.
2:21
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being with us, Amanda, Oh,
2:24
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me. I I've often
2:27
Speaker 1: told that I come with a wealth of information that
2:30
Speaker 1: people's mom's never told them, so I thought this would
2:33
Speaker 1: be a perfect fit. I'm thrilled to be here. I mean,
2:37
Speaker 1: to be fair, In your book, you do talk to
2:38
Speaker 1: moms about their outdated language, so that's kind of like
2:42
Speaker 1: even better, you tell moms what they don't know. Yeah, yeah,
2:47
Speaker 1: it's true. I um I found that moms really enjoy
2:51
Speaker 1: words slut. I think the phrase word slut is you know,
2:54
Speaker 1: it's scandalous but it's not too scandalous for a mom.
2:57
Speaker 1: You know. It's a juxtaposition of a sort of like
3:01
Speaker 1: nerdy word, which is word, and then an asy word,
3:04
Speaker 1: which is slut. But you put them together and it's
3:06
Speaker 1: sort of the crown nut of of an expletive that
3:11
Speaker 1: mom seemed to be okay with, which is good because really,
3:13
Speaker 1: this is a book about feminist socio linguistics that people
3:17
Speaker 1: of of all of all genders and all ages, especially
3:20
Speaker 1: those in their middle age, probably need. So first of all,
3:24
Speaker 1: I'll give you a point for just just saying crow
3:26
Speaker 1: nut in any kind of analogy, So good job. Oh well, anyone,
3:30
Speaker 1: anyone who knows who knows that I am a portmanteau
3:33
Speaker 1: slot portmanteau, portmanteau being a hybrid of of two different
3:39
Speaker 1: words to create a new one, like brunch, frenemy, angry, affluenza,
3:44
Speaker 1: man splain. There are a great many portmanteaus that the
3:48
Speaker 1: feminist movement has come up with in order to name
3:50
Speaker 1: previously unspoken experiences like man splain her story. Frat triarchy
3:56
Speaker 1: is a fun one. Um, so that's one from Oh yeah,
4:00
Speaker 1: A triarchy is what some social scientists have used to
4:03
Speaker 1: describe the setup of our contemporary culture, which is run
4:07
Speaker 1: less by the fathers and more by networks of the brothers.
4:11
Speaker 1: So you know, uh, an example would be, you know,
4:15
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and his bus bros. And that access Hollywood
4:18
Speaker 1: recording would be a perfect example of frat triarchy, you know,
4:22
Speaker 1: bros engaging in locker room banter in order to oppressed women.
4:25
Speaker 1: We're really getting into this quickly. All I said, all
4:28
Speaker 1: I said was grownut and here we are. Look. Yeah, yeah, anyway,
4:35
Speaker 1: that is all to say that I love a portmanteau
4:37
Speaker 1: even more than a pun. Then we have a battle.
4:43
Speaker 1: Now she loves she's a queen of puns. Yes, I'm
4:49
Speaker 1: a I'm a big language nerd. Listeners of this show. No,
4:52
Speaker 1: so I'm very very excited to have this conversation. Um,
4:56
Speaker 1: love the title and congrats on writing a book. Yes,
5:00
Speaker 1: I know that's no easy thing. So oh that that's
5:05
Speaker 1: that's very kind of you. Yeah, that was that was
5:07
Speaker 1: the dream all along, you know. And um, the fact
5:10
Speaker 1: that I got to marry my two loves, that being
5:12
Speaker 1: linguistics the science of language and creative writing the art
5:16
Speaker 1: of it. Um, that was just you know, that was
5:20
Speaker 1: the cherry on top because my dream had always been
5:22
Speaker 1: to write nonfiction. UM, and I I never could have
5:25
Speaker 1: predicted that this sort of um useless, nerdy undergraduate degree
5:30
Speaker 1: that I got would would help me in any sort
5:33
Speaker 1: of fruitful way. UM. But I'm I'm thrilled that I
5:37
Speaker 1: was able to write about this stuff that I love
5:39
Speaker 1: so much and talk about in my everyday life and
5:41
Speaker 1: bring it to a general audience of people who might
5:44
Speaker 1: not even know what linguistics is. So that's been awesome,
5:47
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, and it was. It was wonderful to read.
5:51
Speaker 1: Its super fun, very entertaining. Definitely listeners check it out. UM,
5:57
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and
5:59
Speaker 1: about out the inspiration behind this more than just getting
6:04
Speaker 1: to marry the things that you Yeah, absolutely so. UM.
6:09
Speaker 1: I grew up a total language nerd, hardcore. I was
6:13
Speaker 1: obsessed with what I would later learn was a field
6:16
Speaker 1: called socio linguistics UM, which is where language and sociology
6:21
Speaker 1: and culture intersect. You know. I was always so fascinated
6:25
Speaker 1: by the way that UM people spoke and how it
6:28
Speaker 1: could inform our perceptions of them, and the way that
6:31
Speaker 1: I spoke and the way that it informed other people's
6:33
Speaker 1: perceptions of me. You know why was it that Um,
6:37
Speaker 1: when I, as sort of a small woman, would would
6:41
Speaker 1: curse or maybe even use um ten dollar words, UM,
6:46
Speaker 1: people would be sort of surprised or scandalized, whereas when
6:50
Speaker 1: my male colleagues would do so, they didn't get the
6:53
Speaker 1: same reaction. And and then, you know, I was always
6:57
Speaker 1: just obsessed with the thesaurus. I just loved big old words,
7:01
Speaker 1: and I loved you know, the the swish and thwack
7:05
Speaker 1: of different you know sounds. And I would later learn
7:08
Speaker 1: that that stuff was called phonetics and phonology. UM. But
7:11
Speaker 1: I I, yeah, I was obsessed with foreign languages and dialects.
7:15
Speaker 1: And again how um, speaking of foreign language or or
7:19
Speaker 1: having a certain accent or dialect feature could change the
7:23
Speaker 1: way that a person saw you. So then when I
7:25
Speaker 1: got to college and signed up for my first linguistics
7:28
Speaker 1: one on one class, having no idea what the field was,
7:30
Speaker 1: and learned there was this whole you know, small but
7:34
Speaker 1: mighty um group of people studying formally um these subjects.
7:39
Speaker 1: I I was so smitten. And the gender and language
7:44
Speaker 1: classes that I took really inspired me and like lit
7:47
Speaker 1: a fire, um more than anything else, because they they
7:52
Speaker 1: highlighted these hidden gender biases and stereotypes um, that we
7:58
Speaker 1: all grow up using in our everyday language. UM. And
8:03
Speaker 1: they're they're they're all over the way that we speak,
8:05
Speaker 1: not only in English, but in other languages, to like
8:08
Speaker 1: languages with grammatical gender um, where gender is literally built
8:11
Speaker 1: into the grammatical system. UM. We don't have that in English, UM,
8:15
Speaker 1: other than you know, our third singular pronouns he and she,
8:18
Speaker 1: which you know, there's a reason why are our gender
8:21
Speaker 1: third singular pronouns have become such a topic of contention
8:24
Speaker 1: in in our language because they are really the only
8:28
Speaker 1: um unit of grammar that we have in English that
8:32
Speaker 1: is gendered. UM. And so that's you know, the little
8:35
Speaker 1: category of language that's become sort of politicized. But yeah,
8:40
Speaker 1: I was. I was so fascinated um and sort of horrified,
8:43
Speaker 1: but also inspired um to learn about all the ways
8:47
Speaker 1: that gender and gender stereotypes are lurking beneath the surface
8:52
Speaker 1: of our language. Everything from you know, how we use
8:56
Speaker 1: gendered insults and how there's such a such a more
8:59
Speaker 1: robe bust wealth of of insults for women or referencing
9:03
Speaker 1: femininity in English than there are for men, to the
9:07
Speaker 1: ways that we criticize and perceive women's voices UM, whether
9:11
Speaker 1: it's you know, using a certain feature like up talk UM,
9:15
Speaker 1: where you end a declarative sentence in the upward intonation
9:17
Speaker 1: of a question, or vocal fry, which is a vocal
9:20
Speaker 1: quality where your larynx are very relaxed that sounds like this.
9:23
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure as a as podcast hosts here
9:26
Speaker 1: no stranger to criticisms of your voices. UM. And it
9:31
Speaker 1: was really cool to learn about how so many judgments
9:34
Speaker 1: not only of women's speech, but of the speech of
9:37
Speaker 1: so many marginalized communities UM, have so little to do
9:41
Speaker 1: with the speech itself at the end of the day,
9:43
Speaker 1: and very much to do with our preconceived notions of
9:47
Speaker 1: those speakers. UM. And just you know, the the idea
9:50
Speaker 1: of of male defaultness in our in our culture and
9:54
Speaker 1: in our language, and how the way that men UM,
9:57
Speaker 1: specifically you know, middle aged whites great cis gender men
10:01
Speaker 1: the way that they use language is UM what we
10:04
Speaker 1: default consider prestigious and normal in our culture. UM. Even
10:08
Speaker 1: though UH linguists have found time and time again that
10:12
Speaker 1: young women and communities of color are our languages linguistic innovators, UM,
10:18
Speaker 1: because these are the groups that use language as a
10:21
Speaker 1: form of power and a culture that doesn't give them
10:23
Speaker 1: a lot of other ways to do that. Um. The
10:26
Speaker 1: other example of male defaultness and speech that I that
10:29
Speaker 1: I like to give because it's sort of like it
10:31
Speaker 1: tends to shock people, as it shocked me when I
10:34
Speaker 1: first thought about it, was just the way that we
10:36
Speaker 1: describe sex, like as penetration. You know that that word
10:41
Speaker 1: places you know, penises as the protagonists and the narrators
10:46
Speaker 1: of sex. You know, the opposite might be something like
10:49
Speaker 1: envelopment or enclosure, or if you want to approach it
10:52
Speaker 1: from a sling angle, something like she thing. And I
10:55
Speaker 1: was just like, that is wild. How how word choice
11:00
Speaker 1: um with regard to gender and so many other identities.
11:03
Speaker 1: It's something that we don't even think about because we
11:05
Speaker 1: grow up using language so organically. UM. And so you know,
11:10
Speaker 1: the the opportunity to bring UM some of these empirical
11:14
Speaker 1: studies that are kind of inaccessible and only really read
11:17
Speaker 1: by linguistic students UM to a general audience was really
11:20
Speaker 1: exciting to me. UM. But yeah, I guess you asked
11:24
Speaker 1: me to talk about myself and then I just tended
11:27
Speaker 1: you talking about linguistics. But but but yeah, I am
11:32
Speaker 1: I am I'm a writer and I always dreamt of
11:35
Speaker 1: being a writer. Um, and I I'm writing my second
11:39
Speaker 1: book now, which is about the language of cults, from
11:42
Speaker 1: scientology to soul cycle um, and how the how these groups,
11:48
Speaker 1: you know, the wide spectrum of groups that the word
11:50
Speaker 1: cult can be applied to in contemporary culture, from those
11:53
Speaker 1: as a notorious and destructive as jonestown to those as um,
11:58
Speaker 1: you know, seemingly innocuous and and constructive as something like
12:02
Speaker 1: peloton um. How these groups use language to do things
12:07
Speaker 1: that occult or a cult following would need to do,
12:09
Speaker 1: like create community and solidarity and still ideology creating us
12:13
Speaker 1: versus them, mentality, et cetera. So I guess the the
12:17
Speaker 1: general theme with me is that I'm I'm really interested
12:20
Speaker 1: in in language and culture and um, so that's that's
12:24
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. But I want to write about all
12:25
Speaker 1: kinds of things over the course of my career. So yeah,
12:31
Speaker 1: you should. Yes, Yes, So that was a great answer,
12:35
Speaker 1: And there's so much to impact there and I think
12:36
Speaker 1: we will. But I want to start with a sample,
12:52
Speaker 1: super easy question. Can you give us a brief rundown
12:56
Speaker 1: on the history of the English language and perhaps particularly
12:59
Speaker 1: when it comes to this question of is it sexist,
13:04
Speaker 1: because you talked about that a little bit in the book,
13:07
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, So you know, the English language has
13:11
Speaker 1: such a storied past um as as many languages do.
13:16
Speaker 1: But um. You know, and this is the other fun
13:19
Speaker 1: thing about social linguistics is that you get to track
13:21
Speaker 1: how things like wars and epidemics actually to to you know,
13:27
Speaker 1: be talking book all about it. Um can inform how
13:30
Speaker 1: languages evolve. So let me think of how I wanna
13:33
Speaker 1: tell this story in a succinct manner. So basically we
13:36
Speaker 1: can start back in the fifth century a D. This
13:39
Speaker 1: was long ago, folks Um. The fifth century a D.
13:43
Speaker 1: That's when this trio of Germanic tribes from Scandinavia showed
13:48
Speaker 1: up in the British aisles unannounced. Um. And you know,
13:52
Speaker 1: we don't know if it was peaceful or violent, but
13:54
Speaker 1: you know, probably violent. And um. Those tribes spoke this
13:58
Speaker 1: language called English. Um. I actually don't quite remember how
14:02
Speaker 1: to pronounce the name of the language that they spoke,
14:03
Speaker 1: but it sounded like Lord of the Rings language. Um.
14:07
Speaker 1: And so this lingo, along with some of the North
14:10
Speaker 1: Germanic languages spoken by Vikings, push Britain's Celtic languages to
14:14
Speaker 1: the outskirts of the country UM. And so the product
14:19
Speaker 1: of all of these languages intermingling UM is what we
14:22
Speaker 1: call Old English UM. And it's totally incomprehensible today, but
14:27
Speaker 1: you know, you might have come across some Old English
14:30
Speaker 1: UM if you took nerdy language courses in college like
14:33
Speaker 1: I did. UM. Anyway, Old English was spoken until precisely
14:37
Speaker 1: the year ten sixty six a d. And that's when
14:40
Speaker 1: the Duke of Normandy UM, who was from France, this
14:44
Speaker 1: terrifying little man came in UM. It came into England
14:48
Speaker 1: and murdered a bunch of people and brought with him
14:50
Speaker 1: an early form of French UM. And so that happened,
14:54
Speaker 1: and it was all very violent. But then what was
14:56
Speaker 1: even more violent, speaking of epidemics, was that the Black
14:58
Speaker 1: Death swooped in and killed off about a third of
15:01
Speaker 1: the population UM. And so by the fourteenth century, UM
15:05
Speaker 1: English had become the dominant language of Britain, again not
15:08
Speaker 1: not Old French. But at this point English had been
15:11
Speaker 1: influenced so heavily by Old French UM that it gave
15:14
Speaker 1: us a new form, which was Middle English. And then
15:17
Speaker 1: a few centuries go by and a bunch of stuff happens,
15:20
Speaker 1: like the Great vowel Shift. UM. And by the fifteen hundreds,
15:24
Speaker 1: the traveled enabled British have started mingling with you know,
15:28
Speaker 1: a ton of different people around the world, and so
15:30
Speaker 1: globalization was starting to happen a little bit. The European
15:33
Speaker 1: Renaissance was starting to happen a little bit, and UM
15:36
Speaker 1: the printing press was invented, which was really important for
15:40
Speaker 1: UM language standardization. So all of this starts to happen.
15:45
Speaker 1: The first Webster's dictionary was printed. Actually I don't know
15:49
Speaker 1: if it was Websters. The first dictionary was printed. It
15:51
Speaker 1: had about hundred words. The sixteen hundreds come along. Colonization
15:56
Speaker 1: of North America takes place, and that North American English
16:01
Speaker 1: UM starts to evolve, and that's influenced by French and
16:04
Speaker 1: Spanish and the West African slave trade, UM, and the
16:08
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution happens, and then the Internet happens, and UM
16:12
Speaker 1: a bunch of happens, and then we have contemporary American English.
16:19
Speaker 1: It was a great timeline I like it. Sorry that
16:24
Speaker 1: was kind of long winded, but the history of English
16:26
Speaker 1: is so dramatic I don't know how to sacctly describe it. Yes, yes,
16:33
Speaker 1: that was a very big question, and I appreciate you.
16:37
Speaker 1: I think you did a really great job getting that together. Yeah. So,
16:45
Speaker 1: going off of that, you kind of discuss, um, how
16:49
Speaker 1: the English language isn't necessarily sexist so much as like
16:56
Speaker 1: the people in power have used it at serlutely. Yeah.
17:01
Speaker 1: So there's nothing inherent about the thousand consonants of English
17:05
Speaker 1: that would make it inherently sexist. Um. But you know,
17:09
Speaker 1: as the story of the history of English shows culture
17:13
Speaker 1: and human beings and how we interact with each other
17:16
Speaker 1: and how we colonize and how we standardize really has
17:20
Speaker 1: a huge effect on on the way that language moves.
17:24
Speaker 1: And so you know, many of the characters in the
17:27
Speaker 1: story of the history of English our men, you know,
17:30
Speaker 1: the army dudes, and the aristocracy, and the merchants and
17:33
Speaker 1: labors and the printers um, who you know invented the
17:37
Speaker 1: printing press, um, and um started printing standardized English grammar guides, UM,
17:42
Speaker 1: the dictionary makers, the industry and technology folks. You know,
17:45
Speaker 1: because we live in a society where historically it hasn't
17:48
Speaker 1: been as easy for women and other marginalized folks to
17:53
Speaker 1: to do cool things from a high position of power. Um.
17:57
Speaker 1: It's it's been hard for them to you define the
18:00
Speaker 1: world from the top down. Um. But you know, as
18:04
Speaker 1: it turns out, women do have a huge, huge, enormous
18:08
Speaker 1: impact on how language evolves from the bottom up, which
18:11
Speaker 1: is its own, um sort of even more important kind
18:14
Speaker 1: of power. Um. And that's what the rest of words
18:17
Speaker 1: let us about, really, right, yeah, um so sort of
18:24
Speaker 1: really I know you talk about and we've talked about
18:26
Speaker 1: this in an episode we did in the past, of
18:28
Speaker 1: this sort of devolving of words like if you look
18:32
Speaker 1: at um like master and mistress for example. UM, so
18:38
Speaker 1: can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely so. Um.
18:43
Speaker 1: In English, we have these two forms of semantic change
18:48
Speaker 1: called pejuration and amelioration. And pejoration describes a process of
18:53
Speaker 1: how words over time, where a word that starts out
18:56
Speaker 1: with a neutral or positive meaning eventually devolves too means
19:00
Speaker 1: thing negative, and amelioration is the opposite process. So, sadly,
19:06
Speaker 1: nearly every word the English language offers to describe a
19:10
Speaker 1: woman has at some point during its lifespan been colored
19:14
Speaker 1: some shade of obscene. Um. And there was this linguist
19:18
Speaker 1: name Muriel Schultz Um who wrote this nine paper called
19:22
Speaker 1: the semantic derogation of woman, and in it she describes
19:26
Speaker 1: this process and looks at so many of the words UM,
19:29
Speaker 1: for which this process is true. UM. And you know,
19:32
Speaker 1: it's no coincidence that she wrote this paper in nineteen
19:35
Speaker 1: because you know, the nineteen seventies, with the second wave
19:38
Speaker 1: feminist movement, that's when we really saw the dawn of
19:41
Speaker 1: the study of feminist socio linguistics. So it is relatively
19:45
Speaker 1: new UM, and you know, expanding all the time and
19:49
Speaker 1: becoming more intersectional all the time. And when when young
19:52
Speaker 1: readers of the book, who who hold a complex intersection
19:57
Speaker 1: of identities come to me and they tell me, like,
19:59
Speaker 1: I want to write a about linguistics now, it's just
20:01
Speaker 1: like makes me so happy because we're really, um, we're
20:05
Speaker 1: missing a lot of voices in the world of feminist
20:07
Speaker 1: social linguistics. And there are a ton of people doing
20:10
Speaker 1: really important work UM in the field, but not enough
20:12
Speaker 1: of them. So that's another conversation. But yeah, I mean,
20:16
Speaker 1: we can compare certain minimal pairs of words, like you
20:20
Speaker 1: talked about master and mistress. You know, these terms come
20:24
Speaker 1: to English by way of old French, and and initially
20:27
Speaker 1: both of them indicated a person in a position of authority,
20:30
Speaker 1: like a male and female heads of household. Um. But
20:33
Speaker 1: you know, mistress obviously, as we know, it devolved over
20:37
Speaker 1: time to mean, you know, a sexually promiscuous woman with
20:41
Speaker 1: whom a married man um for indicates. And meanwhile, master
20:46
Speaker 1: um continues to describe a man who's in charge of
20:49
Speaker 1: something like a household or an animal, or a person
20:52
Speaker 1: who's conquered a difficult skill, like like a chef or
20:56
Speaker 1: a karate master. Another example is buddy and sissy UM,
21:01
Speaker 1: which you know, used to mean they were just synonyms
21:04
Speaker 1: for brother and sister, but of course buddy ameliorated to
21:08
Speaker 1: mean you know, a comrade or a pal. You know,
21:10
Speaker 1: it has this friendly, cozy connotation, while cissy devolved to
21:14
Speaker 1: come to mean you know, sort of a weak, overly
21:17
Speaker 1: effeminate man who God forbid reminds you of a woman. Um.
21:21
Speaker 1: Sir and madam is another minimal pair. But yeah, you
21:24
Speaker 1: you come across a lot of those. But it's really
21:26
Speaker 1: interesting because you know, so many of the words that
21:28
Speaker 1: we think of as incredibly degrading towards women, like oh God,
21:33
Speaker 1: and here's where I'm going to have to skirt around
21:35
Speaker 1: some of these curse words. So slat actually started out
21:39
Speaker 1: as a fairly neutral term. Um. You know, hundreds of
21:43
Speaker 1: years ago it was used to describe a sort of
21:46
Speaker 1: messy or untidy woman, and um, it was sometimes used
21:50
Speaker 1: to describe men as well. Um. Chocer at a point
21:53
Speaker 1: describes a male character as sluttish, which I find entertaining
21:57
Speaker 1: um to describe, you know, this character slovenly nous. Um.
22:01
Speaker 1: But what we find with slut, and what we find
22:03
Speaker 1: with so many terms for women, is that over time
22:06
Speaker 1: they they come to mean a sexual slur. That's where
22:10
Speaker 1: they end up, and that really reflects the position of
22:14
Speaker 1: of women in our culture. Um. You know, when we
22:17
Speaker 1: go to insult a woman, we can't help but reduce
22:20
Speaker 1: her to a sexual object. Um, whether that's by way
22:24
Speaker 1: of calling her some type of animal or some type
22:26
Speaker 1: of edible treat um, or just plain old, you know,
22:30
Speaker 1: calling her a prostitute, which in itself is a problematic word. Um.
22:34
Speaker 1: As you know, sex work is completely legitimate. Um. But yeah,
22:39
Speaker 1: so I mean that that was a fascinating thing to discover.
22:42
Speaker 1: And then what was also cool was to to learn
22:46
Speaker 1: and share the information about reclamation um, because a reclamation
22:51
Speaker 1: is sometimes you know, a controversial subject too, because you know,
22:54
Speaker 1: not everybody is going to agree on which words deserve
22:57
Speaker 1: to be abolished rather than claimed. And you know, something
23:01
Speaker 1: that we see in culture is that, um, you know,
23:04
Speaker 1: sometimes gendered insults will go out of style as soon
23:09
Speaker 1: as the underlying belief in them does. So it's one
23:13
Speaker 1: of the reasons why you never hear someone, you know,
23:16
Speaker 1: call a woman an old maid or a spinster in earnest,
23:20
Speaker 1: you know, really trying to damage them or disparage them anymore,
23:24
Speaker 1: because it's no longer completely reprehensible to be a woman
23:27
Speaker 1: who's over you know, thirty five and unmarried. Um. And
23:31
Speaker 1: so you know, there were people there were, you know,
23:33
Speaker 1: feminists who I respect who thought it was you know,
23:37
Speaker 1: who would not have named their book word slut because
23:40
Speaker 1: they think that slut is one of those words that
23:43
Speaker 1: deserves to just go away entirely because it's problematic to
23:46
Speaker 1: have a special word for women's promiscuity at all. Um.
23:50
Speaker 1: And I agree with them there, But you know, I
23:53
Speaker 1: might be slightly more of an optimist um when I
23:56
Speaker 1: think about reclamation, because I like to think, you know,
23:59
Speaker 1: if if we can only choose to use gendered insults
24:04
Speaker 1: in positive contexts, so words slut or talking about, you know, sluttiness,
24:10
Speaker 1: even if it has to do with sex in in
24:12
Speaker 1: a positive way, like I had such a slutty night
24:15
Speaker 1: last night, it was amazing. But if we can only
24:18
Speaker 1: use bitch in context of like bad bitch, badass, bitch,
24:22
Speaker 1: me and my bitches. Um. And by the way, we
24:25
Speaker 1: have women in hip hop in nineties hip hop largely
24:28
Speaker 1: to thank for the reclamation of the word bitch. Um,
24:31
Speaker 1: you know, we can almost they almost singlehandedly um or
24:35
Speaker 1: responsible for reclaiming that word. Um. If we can only
24:38
Speaker 1: use these terms in positive context, then as the next
24:41
Speaker 1: generation comes up hearing those contexts, then they will no
24:46
Speaker 1: longer think of a slut or a bitch in a
24:49
Speaker 1: negative light. Um. And you know, if we can do that,
24:54
Speaker 1: and then when we go to insult people, because lord
24:56
Speaker 1: knows I love to insult people, if when we insult
24:59
Speaker 1: people we can target their behavior rather than their gender,
25:03
Speaker 1: then we can be more inclusive, more specific, more incisive.
25:08
Speaker 1: We can be meaner in fact when we when we
25:11
Speaker 1: criticize their behavior, because we're actually addressing the thing about
25:16
Speaker 1: them that we don't like, rather than just saying like, oh,
25:19
Speaker 1: you're a bitch, you're a slut, you're a c U
25:21
Speaker 1: n t um And the history of that word is
25:24
Speaker 1: also fascinating and it and again did not start out
25:27
Speaker 1: as a negative thing. Um. But yeah, that's why you know,
25:32
Speaker 1: the naming the book word slut was sort of this, um,
25:34
Speaker 1: the statement of of reclamation and my belief and in
25:39
Speaker 1: using words only in in positive context that have so
25:42
Speaker 1: long been used against us, because you know, a more
25:46
Speaker 1: equal world is also one where less offense is taken
25:49
Speaker 1: to language because there's, um, there's nothing disempowering about it,
25:54
Speaker 1: and language can really um work to empower or disempower
25:59
Speaker 1: people in a in a truly material way. So that's
26:02
Speaker 1: my long winded answer to your question. Perfect. Um. Yeah,
26:08
Speaker 1: it's it's funny because I've I've shared this story before
26:10
Speaker 1: on the show. But yes, as podcasters, we do get
26:13
Speaker 1: a lot of criticism on our voices and what we say.
26:17
Speaker 1: And one of my favorites is back before I was
26:19
Speaker 1: even a voice, I was just a producer. Um. I
26:22
Speaker 1: got a comment that said, I know the producer of
26:24
Speaker 1: this show and she's a huge slut, and I think
26:27
Speaker 1: about that all the time. I'd like to I actually
26:29
Speaker 1: know me, who are you out of nowhere like he
26:33
Speaker 1: put out of his way to insult the producer. Um.
26:38
Speaker 1: But has it anybody ever called angels slot there's that. Well.
26:43
Speaker 1: I do think it's interesting that um and it and
26:47
Speaker 1: it highlights some of that that male defaultness again when
26:50
Speaker 1: we have words like man slut um, which highlights the
26:55
Speaker 1: notion that, you know, someone who's contemptuously promiscuous must be female. Um.
27:01
Speaker 1: If we have to attack that masculine modifier onto it
27:04
Speaker 1: um in order for that to apply to men um.
27:06
Speaker 1: And you know, we see the same thing or similar
27:09
Speaker 1: thing with with words like man, bag, man, bun, guideliner,
27:13
Speaker 1: you know, which which served to imply that objects often
27:17
Speaker 1: thought to be frivolous, like makeup and purses, are inherently feminine.
27:21
Speaker 1: And in a in a former career, I was a
27:24
Speaker 1: beauty editor, so I can talk about the history of
27:26
Speaker 1: makeup and and men and how it is not actually
27:29
Speaker 1: inherently feminine. But that's another podcast. Um yeah, and how
27:33
Speaker 1: you know, and my other sort of pet peeves, and
27:36
Speaker 1: we all have language pet peeves. But the fun thing
27:39
Speaker 1: about being a linguists and some something that I try
27:42
Speaker 1: to communicate is that we're not interested in the way
27:44
Speaker 1: that people should talk. We're interested in the way that
27:46
Speaker 1: people do talk and so um, you know, correcting grammar.
27:50
Speaker 1: That's something that people sometimes ask me when they hear that.
27:53
Speaker 1: You know, I've studied linguistics that are like, oh, are
27:55
Speaker 1: you always correcting people's grammar in your head? And I'm like, no,
27:58
Speaker 1: just the opposite, you know. I'm not a pedant, I'm
28:00
Speaker 1: not a grammarian. I'm I'm interested in the precise opposite,
28:05
Speaker 1: you know. I want to know how people really do
28:07
Speaker 1: talk in their most natural state and what that says
28:10
Speaker 1: about their background and their experiences. And so I try
28:15
Speaker 1: to remain as a non judgmental and as curious as
28:18
Speaker 1: possible about language. And I think that in general that's
28:21
Speaker 1: a that's a really good way to approach it. Um.
28:24
Speaker 1: But yeah, I do that said, I do have my
28:27
Speaker 1: own little pet peeves, and some of them are are when,
28:31
Speaker 1: you know, when people say things like you know, girl
28:35
Speaker 1: boss and she e o and mom preneur. You know,
28:39
Speaker 1: they sort of like cutesify um terms that are are
28:44
Speaker 1: not inherently gendered UM, which highlight and perpetuate the notion
28:50
Speaker 1: that the words boss and entrepreneur and CEO are sort
28:53
Speaker 1: of tacitly coded male. Um, even when people call me
28:57
Speaker 1: a girl boss as a compliment, like I just cringe
29:00
Speaker 1: because I'm like, what, First of all, I'm not the
29:04
Speaker 1: boss of anyone. I literally have no employees. But also
29:09
Speaker 1: if you're gonna call me that, please don't call me
29:11
Speaker 1: a girl boss because let's not Let's not perpetuate and
29:14
Speaker 1: reflect these stereotypes, shall we, Right, And that's not a
29:18
Speaker 1: double whammy in itself, because obviously a girl is a
29:20
Speaker 1: juvenile to begin with, dominutive. Yeah, not only does it
29:25
Speaker 1: have to be hey, oh you're something special because you're
29:27
Speaker 1: not male, so we have to say you're a female
29:29
Speaker 1: of swords, but not only that, you're a child, so
29:31
Speaker 1: you're a girl. So stop. I know. Can you imagine
29:36
Speaker 1: calling some six year old man a boy boss. It
29:39
Speaker 1: would be so silly. I just wouldn't make sense going
29:42
Speaker 1: to now, Yeah, I know, give it a try. We
29:48
Speaker 1: have some more for you listeners, but first we have
29:50
Speaker 1: a quick break for word from our sponsor and we're back.
30:05
Speaker 1: Thank you sponsored. Because, as we've discussed, the media, love
30:13
Speaker 1: love love love loves to critique female women voices. Um,
30:18
Speaker 1: how to stop vocal fry, how not to up talk,
30:21
Speaker 1: stop saying sorry, stop using emoji, stop using exclamation points,
30:24
Speaker 1: and emails, and largely it seems like what it's boiling
30:29
Speaker 1: down to is telling women and other marginalized communities to
30:33
Speaker 1: to fit into this conform to this male dominated workspace.
30:38
Speaker 1: So what are some ways that you have found or
30:44
Speaker 1: that you think that we can find our own voices
30:47
Speaker 1: and own our own voices in those spaces. Yeah, yeah,
30:51
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, Um, these spaces. I mean, culture in
30:56
Speaker 1: general wants women and and folks of other marginalized identities
31:01
Speaker 1: who don't speak quote unquote standard English, which is of
31:06
Speaker 1: course the standardized English um that was put in place
31:10
Speaker 1: by you know, stuffy old white men. They want they
31:13
Speaker 1: want everyone else to accommodate to that standard because we
31:15
Speaker 1: all grew up thinking that that is proper English. Um,
31:19
Speaker 1: it's prescriptive grammar. Um, that's the grammar that your English
31:23
Speaker 1: teacher teaches you. Um. But really there is nothing inherently
31:27
Speaker 1: better about it. And in fact, attempting to keep language
31:31
Speaker 1: from moving forward or changing is a feudal effort because
31:35
Speaker 1: it is going to change, and young women are you know,
31:39
Speaker 1: going to be the ones to to change it. Um.
31:42
Speaker 1: And that's what linguists have found time and time again
31:44
Speaker 1: that young people tend to, you know, be quicker on
31:47
Speaker 1: the uptake of linguistic change than older generations. And young
31:51
Speaker 1: women tend to be about half a generation ahead of
31:53
Speaker 1: young men. And so you know, really when it comes
31:56
Speaker 1: to linguistic innovation, we should be celebrating that. And and
32:01
Speaker 1: that doesn't only have to do with you know, innovations
32:04
Speaker 1: that young women make, but you know, especially with with
32:07
Speaker 1: everything that's that's going on in our country right now,
32:10
Speaker 1: I can't not address how so often African American English
32:14
Speaker 1: is criticized as being improper English or poorer grammar without acknowledging.
32:21
Speaker 1: And this is something that you learn in linguistics, and
32:23
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for that that it is such a
32:25
Speaker 1: complex and sophisticated, systematic dialect um that is a product
32:30
Speaker 1: of Black Americans oppression but also their innovation um. And
32:35
Speaker 1: Black Americans grow up learning from an extremely young age
32:40
Speaker 1: to code switch, so that you know, in in certain
32:43
Speaker 1: communities they're speaking one dialect and then maybe in an
32:47
Speaker 1: office spaces or or white spaces, they're they're learning to
32:51
Speaker 1: speak another dialect. And that's a form of bilingualism that
32:54
Speaker 1: should be celebrated rather than condemned. But you know, I
32:58
Speaker 1: remember growing up in Baltimore, or you know, my English
33:01
Speaker 1: teachers in middle school in high school criticizing black students
33:06
Speaker 1: voices when they weren't in class, when they were in
33:08
Speaker 1: the hallway um and you know, telling them not to
33:11
Speaker 1: use this verb tense or or you know that pronunciation
33:17
Speaker 1: and um that really perpetuates stereotypes and in an extremely negative,
33:22
Speaker 1: profound way, that that does keep people um from power,
33:26
Speaker 1: and that does promote racism. But yeah, I mean, I
33:29
Speaker 1: think you know, when you're talking about owning your voice
33:32
Speaker 1: in some of these spaces, it is challenging because sometimes
33:35
Speaker 1: a person's most authentic voice will you know, be a
33:41
Speaker 1: hindrance to them, even though there's nothing inherently wrong with
33:43
Speaker 1: their speech. In fact, their speech is probably more sophisticated
33:47
Speaker 1: and more inventive and more communicative than the speech of
33:52
Speaker 1: you know, their bosses. And actually, linguists have an acronym
33:55
Speaker 1: for the least innovative population of English speakers there, non mobile,
34:01
Speaker 1: older rural males, and linguists call them norms, which I
34:06
Speaker 1: just think is fantastic. Um. So you know, when we're
34:11
Speaker 1: when we're at work or or certainly when you're you know,
34:14
Speaker 1: running for political office, or when you're you know, vying
34:17
Speaker 1: for any sort of position of power, the expectation is
34:20
Speaker 1: for you to accommodate to the speech of norms. And
34:24
Speaker 1: you know, in in some workplaces, it's going to be
34:28
Speaker 1: more acceptable to push back against that. You know, say, oh, hey,
34:32
Speaker 1: I read in word slut that UH had vocal fry
34:35
Speaker 1: and up talk and using like every other word. Um.
34:38
Speaker 1: These are actually signs of linguistic savvy. And I can
34:40
Speaker 1: point you to a number of empirical studies that disprove
34:43
Speaker 1: these problematic standards that you've always held. UM. But obviously,
34:46
Speaker 1: and not every workplace that is that going to be appropriate.
34:51
Speaker 1: So sometimes what I like to tell people is that
34:54
Speaker 1: when you get criticisms from a boss or something like that,
34:57
Speaker 1: that you need to stop using vocal fry or so
34:59
Speaker 1: many filler were words or exclamation points in your emails
35:02
Speaker 1: or you know, whatever it is. UM. You might have
35:06
Speaker 1: to briefly, you know, temporarily accommodate in order you know,
35:10
Speaker 1: not to get fired, in order to keep your job. UM.
35:13
Speaker 1: But then you can go back to your desk or
35:15
Speaker 1: you can go home, not wasting any time second guessing yourself.
35:20
Speaker 1: It's really you know, it's almost a form of gas
35:22
Speaker 1: lighting when someone tells you that there's something wrong with
35:26
Speaker 1: your speech, even though there's actually something wrong with their standards. Um.
35:31
Speaker 1: But you can go back to your desk, or go home,
35:33
Speaker 1: or log off Skype or Zoom or whatever service you're using,
35:36
Speaker 1: and you can at least not waste any time worrying
35:40
Speaker 1: that there is something inherently wrong about you, that your
35:42
Speaker 1: voice is you know, naturally inauthoritative, and that you need
35:46
Speaker 1: to change. You know, we all know what we need
35:48
Speaker 1: to do in those spaces. Temporarily, we need to, you know,
35:52
Speaker 1: just talk like our bosses for the time being. But
35:55
Speaker 1: at least you will have the confident knowledge that your
35:59
Speaker 1: speech is there for a logical, powerful, provable reason. And
36:03
Speaker 1: so in you know, a couple of years, a few years,
36:06
Speaker 1: when you become the boss, you can resist perpetuating those
36:10
Speaker 1: standards when you now have young women and other folks
36:13
Speaker 1: coming up under you. Um, because you know, so many
36:17
Speaker 1: of the criticisms that I myself have received in the
36:19
Speaker 1: workplace of saying like too much or you know, being
36:23
Speaker 1: to quote unquote opinionated or allowed or um any of
36:28
Speaker 1: these other criticisms. Yes, so so much of them have
36:30
Speaker 1: come from female bosses, and often their criticism is even
36:34
Speaker 1: harsher because they figured, you know, I had to do this,
36:37
Speaker 1: I had to fight tooth and nail to climb the
36:39
Speaker 1: corporate ladder. And these are always white women, by the way, um,
36:42
Speaker 1: you know, the Karen's of the world. They they you know,
36:46
Speaker 1: they think I had I had to accommodate, I had
36:48
Speaker 1: to fight my way up the corporate ladder. So this
36:51
Speaker 1: is just par for the course, and you need to
36:53
Speaker 1: do it too, and I'm going to hold you to
36:54
Speaker 1: an even stricter standard. Um. Meanwhile, like these these speech
37:00
Speaker 1: quality is like like and vocal fry and and so
37:03
Speaker 1: much of the slang that comes from African American and
37:05
Speaker 1: English that you know, eventually within a few years ends
37:08
Speaker 1: up taking a seat at the table of everyday English. Um.
37:12
Speaker 1: These are qualities that everybody ends up using, um in
37:15
Speaker 1: a in a number of years. It's just that there
37:17
Speaker 1: are these growing pains because when norms here this language,
37:21
Speaker 1: they you know, subconsciously feel the grounds of linguistic change
37:26
Speaker 1: quaking beneath them, you know. And this is a sign
37:29
Speaker 1: that the that a new generation is rising up and
37:32
Speaker 1: coming into power and they don't like that, especially when
37:35
Speaker 1: those people are people of color or women or both.
37:39
Speaker 1: So yeah, my my advice is really just to not
37:42
Speaker 1: let it get you down, not let these criticisms get
37:44
Speaker 1: you down, not let them distract you. Remain open minded
37:48
Speaker 1: about your speech and non judgmental about your speech, but
37:51
Speaker 1: also non judgmental of the speech of others who who
37:54
Speaker 1: aren't like you. And then when you're the boss, make
37:58
Speaker 1: it an include of empowering space for folks who aren't norms.
38:04
Speaker 1: And I did love reading in your book when you
38:07
Speaker 1: were talking specifically about when the fact that the black
38:09
Speaker 1: community would coin these terms or um language like woke
38:14
Speaker 1: had been really taken over. It's now blown obviously all
38:17
Speaker 1: kinds of ways um, and it's kind of ignored whence
38:20
Speaker 1: it becomes popular and becomes a term that is acknowledged
38:23
Speaker 1: that it was ever started. It began with the black
38:26
Speaker 1: community and trying to beg those people that are not
38:29
Speaker 1: black to understand what is happening in whatever political or
38:34
Speaker 1: even just humanitarian a lot types of ways that their
38:37
Speaker 1: rights were being taken away in any type of form.
38:39
Speaker 1: And I did like that you did talk about that
38:41
Speaker 1: A little bit can you talk a little more, and
38:43
Speaker 1: I know it wasn't too big of an excerpt, but
38:45
Speaker 1: you were talking about how it has originated there and
38:48
Speaker 1: how it kind of just how big of an influence
38:51
Speaker 1: it does have in everyday life. Oh absolutely, I mean,
38:55
Speaker 1: we have we have African American folks and speakers of
38:58
Speaker 1: African American English to thank for all of our treasured
39:02
Speaker 1: slang terms in English. You know, terms as new as
39:06
Speaker 1: woke and squad and boy, and as old as the
39:10
Speaker 1: use of bad to mean good and the phrase. I mean.
39:14
Speaker 1: I talked to this amazing linguist um at the University
39:16
Speaker 1: of Texas at Austin named Sonia Lainhardt, who studies African
39:19
Speaker 1: American English and women um, and she told me that
39:24
Speaker 1: the first time she ever heard a white male news
39:26
Speaker 1: anchor on the television use the phrase, she nearly spit
39:31
Speaker 1: out her drink because that derived from African American English.
39:36
Speaker 1: And you know, not only that, but so many of
39:39
Speaker 1: today's most beloved slang terms that we see used on
39:43
Speaker 1: social media all the time, like throwing shade and read
39:47
Speaker 1: and work and yass um and iconic. These are terms
39:52
Speaker 1: that are so often attributed to you know, broad city
39:56
Speaker 1: or the Internet but they derive from ballroom culture, which
40:00
Speaker 1: was a community of extremely marginalized black and Latin X
40:05
Speaker 1: you know, trans and gay drag performers, um, whose heyday
40:09
Speaker 1: was in nineteen eighties ballroom New York. And we so
40:13
Speaker 1: often fail to recognize and you know, it's not, you know,
40:16
Speaker 1: explicitly everyone's fault. It's just it's our culture. You know,
40:19
Speaker 1: we don't want to give credit where credit is due,
40:22
Speaker 1: and we don't want to acknowledge, um, the originators of
40:26
Speaker 1: some of this language. And by the way, like sort
40:28
Speaker 1: of like what you were saying, These folks don't create
40:31
Speaker 1: slang because they think it will be trendy and catchy
40:33
Speaker 1: and they want to create a hashtag and they want
40:34
Speaker 1: to become Instagram famous. They create this language because it's
40:38
Speaker 1: a matter of solidarity and survival. You know, when when
40:41
Speaker 1: ballroom performers were using some of that language in the eighties,
40:46
Speaker 1: it was so they could identify who was safe to trust,
40:49
Speaker 1: who was a part of their their group, um, so
40:52
Speaker 1: that they could avoid persecution, so that they could avoid violence. UM.
40:57
Speaker 1: And that is so much of why know, many queer
41:00
Speaker 1: communities and communities of color invent with language, UM, because
41:05
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're at the risk of really you know,
41:09
Speaker 1: real life violence. UM. And that's such an important thing
41:13
Speaker 1: to recognize. And so it's like it's like everything else,
41:16
Speaker 1: you know, we're seeing so much communication right now about
41:20
Speaker 1: how you know, we wish that America loved black people
41:23
Speaker 1: as much as they as we love black culture. And
41:26
Speaker 1: that has to do with music and um and fashion
41:31
Speaker 1: and very much has to do with language. And so
41:34
Speaker 1: you know, the least we can do, if we're going
41:37
Speaker 1: to use some of the products of of these communities
41:41
Speaker 1: is to support them at every turn. And I talked
41:44
Speaker 1: a lot with Sonia Laine hard about this, and she
41:46
Speaker 1: very generously told me, you know, we don't have to
41:49
Speaker 1: stop using words like like woke and boy and seven um.
41:54
Speaker 1: And these are just a few of the countless examples.
41:57
Speaker 1: But what we have to do is show up for
42:00
Speaker 1: these communities or else we're hypocrites. Um. And because at
42:06
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you know, our language and
42:08
Speaker 1: our politics are connected, our language and our ethics are connected, um.
42:13
Speaker 1: And we need to remember that. So, yeah, thank you
42:16
Speaker 1: for bringing that up. I love that. Yeah. I loved
42:20
Speaker 1: in your book how you described women's conversations like jazz
42:24
Speaker 1: and then particularly black women's conversation sort of like speech building,
42:29
Speaker 1: a community building and consensus, because I've never thought of
42:32
Speaker 1: it in that way, but that was a really cool
42:36
Speaker 1: way to think of it because a lot of the
42:37
Speaker 1: things that we do demonize, the likes, which I also
42:41
Speaker 1: like how you broke down there are four different types
42:43
Speaker 1: of them, and they oh there are six, there are
42:45
Speaker 1: six six. Oh my gosh, that's so cool. Those things
42:50
Speaker 1: that we demonize are sort of a way of yes,
42:52
Speaker 1: I hear you. I'm like with you as we're going
42:56
Speaker 1: through this conversational journey and you're building something absolutely yeah. Yeah,
43:00
Speaker 1: so right, so you're talking about how there's this linguist
43:04
Speaker 1: who has dedicated a lot of her career to understanding
43:07
Speaker 1: the many forms of the word like in English, and
43:10
Speaker 1: they're actually six of them, and they all serve a
43:12
Speaker 1: very distinct purpose, and um, we don't you know, we
43:15
Speaker 1: don't even notice or acknowledge that because we just blame
43:18
Speaker 1: you know, teenage girls for all these likes and for
43:20
Speaker 1: ruining the English language, even though um, most people of
43:24
Speaker 1: all ages and all genders use all six um, because
43:28
Speaker 1: they all are extremely useful. But yeah, you were talking
43:31
Speaker 1: about them. You know this the style of talk that
43:35
Speaker 1: this one linguist in particular, Jennifer Coates noticed um in
43:39
Speaker 1: women's conversations, um is is likened to a jam session,
43:44
Speaker 1: like a jazz jam session. UM, because in conversations among women,
43:48
Speaker 1: you'll often hear overlapping talk, you know, speakers repeating one
43:52
Speaker 1: another or rephrasing one another's words. Um. And everyone is
43:56
Speaker 1: sort of working together to construct meaning. UM. So you know,
44:00
Speaker 1: the sort of like one speaker at a time rule
44:04
Speaker 1: doesn't apply even though you see that one speaker at
44:06
Speaker 1: a time structure and a lot of conversations among men
44:09
Speaker 1: because you know, and these are these are large generalizations obviously,
44:13
Speaker 1: but um, it's interesting to think about how a lot
44:15
Speaker 1: of the time, you know, women are conditioned also, these
44:19
Speaker 1: are these are not you know, ways of talking that
44:21
Speaker 1: we are born understanding. We're we're conditioned to understand them
44:25
Speaker 1: and to use them. But um, you know, women often,
44:28
Speaker 1: you know, perceive the conversational floor on a horizontal level
44:33
Speaker 1: as a way to you know, create meaning and build solidarity,
44:37
Speaker 1: whereas men oftentimes see it um as a in a
44:40
Speaker 1: vertical way, um, in order to express individual achievement. UM.
44:45
Speaker 1: And so that's why you see this this jam session
44:49
Speaker 1: E style. In in the talk of women and um
44:53
Speaker 1: and Yeah, Sonia Elainhardt Um had talked about how minimal
44:57
Speaker 1: responses are something you so often see in the speech
45:01
Speaker 1: of of black women's communities, and how they especially are
45:06
Speaker 1: are incredibly savvy at using things like minimal responses and
45:09
Speaker 1: those are are words like mm hmm and you're right,
45:12
Speaker 1: and yes, um to build on one another's points and
45:15
Speaker 1: to uh support one another and um sort of emotionally
45:19
Speaker 1: support each other. Um. And these are things that are
45:22
Speaker 1: criticized even though they're not inherently bad. Actually, as recently
45:25
Speaker 1: as yesterday, somebody tagged me in an Instagram post, a
45:29
Speaker 1: new Instagram post where someone was, you know, perpetuating this
45:34
Speaker 1: information that we see all the time, where they were saying, like, ladies,
45:38
Speaker 1: we need to stop using filler words like just you
45:41
Speaker 1: know actually and I feel like because these are just
45:45
Speaker 1: words that we have all learned to use to soften
45:49
Speaker 1: the confidence of our convictions. And just as we have
45:52
Speaker 1: been taught to express insecurity about our appearance, we've been
45:56
Speaker 1: taught to use these hedges or filler words. They don't
45:59
Speaker 1: even know the word um. We've been taught to use
46:01
Speaker 1: these filler words to express insecurity of what we're saying,
46:05
Speaker 1: and we need to stop using them because that is
46:08
Speaker 1: just telling men that we really are insecure. But that's
46:13
Speaker 1: just a first impression and it's based on nothing, it's
46:17
Speaker 1: based on no studies. The linguists who have empirically looked
46:21
Speaker 1: into hedges UM that's a synonym for filler words. These
46:25
Speaker 1: are also known as discourse markers, have found that they
46:28
Speaker 1: are so rarely used to communicate insecurity UM, and that
46:33
Speaker 1: they are much more often used to to do some
46:37
Speaker 1: of those same things like build solidarity and check for
46:41
Speaker 1: the face needs of everyone in a conversation UM. And
46:46
Speaker 1: linguists have found that often speech lacking in legs you
46:49
Speaker 1: knows and actually comes across as two careful and robotic
46:54
Speaker 1: and unfriendly and these these you know legs and you knows.
46:58
Speaker 1: And actually these hedges are only used more by women
47:02
Speaker 1: than men because women more often than not dive into
47:06
Speaker 1: sensitive territory during their discussions, so men aren't having as
47:10
Speaker 1: sensitive of conversations and so these speech characteristics aren't as
47:15
Speaker 1: useful to them. UM. But when women are talking about
47:18
Speaker 1: everything from families to relationships to therapy to you know, politics, UM,
47:26
Speaker 1: to social justice. You know, you need some of these
47:30
Speaker 1: hedges in order to account for the face needs of
47:34
Speaker 1: everyone in a discussion and to sort of soften really sensitive,
47:38
Speaker 1: oftentimes harsh and hard to hear sentiments. So yeah, I'm
47:44
Speaker 1: so right when I start to think like, oh, everybody
47:46
Speaker 1: already knows this word slept stuff, I like get tagged
47:49
Speaker 1: in a post like that, and I'm like, oh, no,
47:51
Speaker 1: they do not. We have a little bit more for
47:57
Speaker 1: you listeners, but first we have one more quick break
47:59
Speaker 1: for work from Responsive and her back thanky sponsor. Oh
48:16
Speaker 1: my gosh, I have so many things I want to
48:18
Speaker 1: ask you, but we would be remiss if we didn't
48:19
Speaker 1: talk about cursing yum, because this is actually something I've
48:26
Speaker 1: been thinking about a lot. I had a friend who, uh,
48:30
Speaker 1: she's actually my other podcast host over on Savor Lauren.
48:35
Speaker 1: She curses a lot, and she pointed out to me,
48:39
Speaker 1: like a month ago, if you think about it, you know,
48:42
Speaker 1: we say motherfucker, what if we said father fucker, say
48:45
Speaker 1: son of a bit? Like it's always an assault towards women,
48:49
Speaker 1: that's in the end. Um. And so you mentioned the
48:53
Speaker 1: history of the sea word and a bitch and slut
48:57
Speaker 1: and me claiming these things. Is there like a particular
49:00
Speaker 1: uh one that you would like to dive into the
49:03
Speaker 1: history of and just women in cursing in general, because
49:07
Speaker 1: we do have a real anxiety about that, as you
49:09
Speaker 1: sort of alluded to. Yeah, yeah, so there was this study.
49:13
Speaker 1: So basically, I guess to give a little bit of
49:15
Speaker 1: context because we are talking about so many topics the
49:19
Speaker 1: this book words lit. I'm sure some readers who are
49:21
Speaker 1: are listeners who are unfamiliar, like what is this book
49:25
Speaker 1: that talks about so many things? Basically, like every chapter
49:28
Speaker 1: tackles a different subject having to do with language and gender,
49:31
Speaker 1: from insults to grammatical gender, to the conversations among women
49:36
Speaker 1: when men aren't around, and myths about gossip and things
49:39
Speaker 1: like that too, cursing to genitalia, naming slang throughout history.
49:43
Speaker 1: It like runs the gamut. It's it's it's a big
49:45
Speaker 1: old beast. Um, it's a one on one, it's it's
49:48
Speaker 1: a big one on one introduction. Absolutely. Yeah, it's funny
49:52
Speaker 1: that you say that, because I in the early days
49:55
Speaker 1: of like putting together, um, the outline for this book,
49:58
Speaker 1: I kind of based it on my sex, gender and
50:01
Speaker 1: Language college syllabus because I figured like, if I fell
50:04
Speaker 1: in love with this material in this class, then that
50:07
Speaker 1: then probably work on other people too. Obviously, it has
50:10
Speaker 1: gotten pretty far from my college syllabus. Um. There there
50:14
Speaker 1: is no chapter in my sex, Gender and Language class
50:17
Speaker 1: called get an ode to Cursing while Female, which is
50:20
Speaker 1: the chapter that you're referencing. Um, But I'm a potty
50:24
Speaker 1: mouth too, and so I had to include it. But yeah,
50:27
Speaker 1: I was really interested in talking about cursing because I
50:29
Speaker 1: do curse so very much, and I'm also like so
50:35
Speaker 1: resentful of the stereotypes that people who curse just can't
50:40
Speaker 1: think of anything better to say. And I was like,
50:43
Speaker 1: I really and also, you know, I I was so
50:46
Speaker 1: mystified by why I, as a female, was perceived as
50:50
Speaker 1: being you know, even more crass or almost more intriguing
50:54
Speaker 1: in a way for cursing, um than men. And so
50:58
Speaker 1: I found this study that was looking into young men's
51:02
Speaker 1: and women's self reported reasons for cursing, and it was
51:07
Speaker 1: it was pretty interesting because, um, I related to a
51:10
Speaker 1: lot of the answers that the women in this study gave. Um.
51:13
Speaker 1: You know a lot of them talked about how there
51:16
Speaker 1: are reasons for cursing. Well, first of all, I want
51:18
Speaker 1: to mention that linguist who studied cursing have found that
51:22
Speaker 1: cursing is not inherently aggressive or violent, even though it
51:27
Speaker 1: is perceived that way, which is also why it's perceived
51:29
Speaker 1: as an inherently more masculine thing. But in very few
51:33
Speaker 1: instances of everyday cursing are people using it to convey
51:37
Speaker 1: aggression or violence. You know, there are in fact forms
51:40
Speaker 1: of polite cursing, as in the sentence oh my god,
51:44
Speaker 1: this banana breag you just baked is the ship? Or
51:47
Speaker 1: I think love your jacket. You know, these are actively
51:51
Speaker 1: polite forms of cursing. They might be crassed, they might
51:54
Speaker 1: be bleeped on I Heart radio, but you know, they
51:58
Speaker 1: are not inherently violent. Um So, anyway, that some of
52:03
Speaker 1: these self reported reasons for cursing by women interested me
52:07
Speaker 1: because they were having to do with um personality and
52:12
Speaker 1: emphasis and crafting a certain identity. You know, these were
52:16
Speaker 1: some of the reasons why women cursed, where men self
52:19
Speaker 1: reported that they cursed just because it was expected. And
52:22
Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting because people have this sort
52:24
Speaker 1: of um awareness that there are these gender disparities in
52:29
Speaker 1: our expectations of how men and women should use language
52:32
Speaker 1: with regard to cursing. And I was thinking in my head,
52:35
Speaker 1: you know, like I do that too. I curse for emphasis,
52:38
Speaker 1: for personality, for kutzpuff, for shock value. Um never because
52:44
Speaker 1: it's expected. Sometimes I'll actively do it just to like
52:47
Speaker 1: shake things up in a business meeting, you know what
52:49
Speaker 1: I mean, Just like, let's see what if I throw
52:52
Speaker 1: up if I throw an F word out here on
52:55
Speaker 1: one of these stuffy people in suits, gonna do um
52:58
Speaker 1: and that, And that's sort of an act of, you know,
53:01
Speaker 1: rebellion against expectations and an act of crafting a certain identity.
53:06
Speaker 1: And I think that's what a lot of women do
53:08
Speaker 1: with cursing. UM. But yeah, I think a lot of
53:11
Speaker 1: curse words to um, like to your point, are reflecting
53:16
Speaker 1: a masculine point of view, and we talk about some
53:19
Speaker 1: of them are are profoundly homophobic as well. UM. And
53:23
Speaker 1: so you know, I I love cursing, and I love
53:26
Speaker 1: the phono symbolism of cursing, the sort of you know,
53:30
Speaker 1: hard plosive consonants, the cuz and the puzz and the
53:34
Speaker 1: puzz and the uzz. I just like love the power
53:39
Speaker 1: and those sounds. Um. Those are also some of the
53:41
Speaker 1: first sounds that babies utter in their babbling phase, so
53:45
Speaker 1: they're sort of some of our favorite sounds from birth.
53:49
Speaker 1: And so um. You know, something that that I sometimes
53:54
Speaker 1: like to experiment with and invite other people to experiment with,
53:57
Speaker 1: is um like creating our own curse words, like in
54:01
Speaker 1: the in the book, at a point I suggest, and
54:03
Speaker 1: do I buy any means envision our culture doing away
54:08
Speaker 1: with our current vocabulary of curse words and replacing them
54:11
Speaker 1: with you know, more feminist ones. No, but it is
54:13
Speaker 1: fun to think about it. It is fun to kind
54:15
Speaker 1: of reframe our perception of language um as you know,
54:19
Speaker 1: as one of like, oh, we can get creative with
54:21
Speaker 1: this stuff. So um. One of the ones that I
54:23
Speaker 1: that I suggest is holy clit, which I think is
54:29
Speaker 1: kind of fun. Um. You know. Obviously. The other thing
54:32
Speaker 1: too that's really interesting is that our curse words really reflect, um,
54:37
Speaker 1: the standards and fears of our culture. So in um
54:41
Speaker 1: Canadian French, for example, so many of their curse words
54:44
Speaker 1: have to do with religion and Catholicism, like tabianic like
54:48
Speaker 1: which means tabernacle or I don't even know how to
54:50
Speaker 1: say that I'm Jewish, so um. But but um in
54:54
Speaker 1: in English, so many of our curse words have to
54:57
Speaker 1: do with sex, right, and that really you know, it's
55:01
Speaker 1: it's the puritanism of it all and the and the
55:03
Speaker 1: scandal of sex um is what that really reflects. But
55:06
Speaker 1: we also have a whole category of cursing that's you know, schatology.
55:10
Speaker 1: Um like asked, which I know because you told me
55:14
Speaker 1: will be bleeped. I think that's so funny. Why is
55:16
Speaker 1: asked not believed but asked? I guess because asked is
55:20
Speaker 1: sort of subtly implying just the cheeks, and then asked
55:24
Speaker 1: was a little more internal. You could probably get away with,
55:28
Speaker 1: you know, it's a donkey thing or whatever. My favorite,
55:33
Speaker 1: like two of my favorites would be asked hat because
55:35
Speaker 1: I don't think it's used us just fun that's a
55:37
Speaker 1: funny vision. That's like it was a literal thing. I
55:41
Speaker 1: was like, ah, that's you have an asked for a
55:44
Speaker 1: hat or you know, something like dick. Like that's one
55:46
Speaker 1: of my other favorite was because it's a funny is
55:48
Speaker 1: not many I thought, it's not as known as what
55:53
Speaker 1: do you mean dick? And I was like, what, you know,
55:55
Speaker 1: he's a dick or there a dick, you know, stuff
55:57
Speaker 1: like that, and it's kind of like people kind of confused,
56:00
Speaker 1: is if I'm not saying, you know, any other cards words.
56:03
Speaker 1: But also because of the sounds, it's a really hard
56:05
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, exactly exactly, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true like
56:10
Speaker 1: so so many of our and Dick is like sort
56:12
Speaker 1: of the one outlier that paints, um, you know, fallacism
56:17
Speaker 1: and is that even a word, fallacism in a negative light? Um,
56:21
Speaker 1: whereas we have so many that portray you know, Volva's
56:25
Speaker 1: in in a negative light. Um. But yeah, I mean
56:29
Speaker 1: not to men like douchebag, like all these terms. Oh
56:31
Speaker 1: my god. This is a story that I don't think
56:34
Speaker 1: I've ever told, like in an event or a podcast
56:36
Speaker 1: or anything before. But I remember, like it's so funny
56:39
Speaker 1: when you're experimenting with cursing for the first time when
56:41
Speaker 1: you're a kid, because you're like so intrigued by this
56:45
Speaker 1: language that you know is taboo. You just like have
56:48
Speaker 1: a feeling is taboo. But but you don't know what
56:50
Speaker 1: these individual words mean, and the only way to learn
56:54
Speaker 1: what they mean is to like use them. But sometimes
56:57
Speaker 1: you use them in a context that's like so just
57:00
Speaker 1: like such a misstep. Like I remember the first time
57:03
Speaker 1: I ever used the word douche. I called my mom
57:06
Speaker 1: a douche. I was like seven. I don't know where
57:10
Speaker 1: I heard it. I must have heard it at school, uh,
57:13
Speaker 1: And I called my mom a douche and she was
57:15
Speaker 1: just like what, Like where did you hear that? My
57:19
Speaker 1: mom was like a very composed scientist. By the way,
57:22
Speaker 1: like my mom, I didn't really curse in front of
57:26
Speaker 1: my parents in the way that I genuinely do in
57:27
Speaker 1: my everyday life until I was like in my twenties
57:30
Speaker 1: because I just didn't think they could handle it because
57:32
Speaker 1: they're not really that vulgar. They're these very like mild
57:35
Speaker 1: mannered scientists. But um, yeah, I like called my mom
57:39
Speaker 1: a douche and she was like, Amanda, do you know
57:42
Speaker 1: what that is? And then of course she very clinically
57:45
Speaker 1: described this like yeast infection causing even like product that
57:51
Speaker 1: was invented because our culture thinks that vaginas are dirty, um,
57:55
Speaker 1: when really there's some cleaning books. Um. But anyways, um, yeah,
58:00
Speaker 1: that's just a funny story about how like we just
58:04
Speaker 1: the way that we come to use curse words or
58:06
Speaker 1: come to learn curse words is such an awkward process,
58:10
Speaker 1: So like why not make that awkward process for the
58:13
Speaker 1: next generation, just a little more feminist, you know, have
58:15
Speaker 1: your seven year old come to you and be like,
58:17
Speaker 1: holy clip, pepper pig is on again. Whatever that is.
58:22
Speaker 1: As soon as I thought, I don't think I have
58:24
Speaker 1: ever thought I would hear, so thank you for that.
58:30
Speaker 1: I enjoyed that one. So right now as we record this,
58:37
Speaker 1: probably by the time it comes out it's no longer true.
58:39
Speaker 1: But right now it's Pride month, um, and we are
58:42
Speaker 1: seeing this massive social push for change and protesting, and
58:48
Speaker 1: and your book you you write um about how in
58:54
Speaker 1: the right hands, uh, language can change the world, and
58:58
Speaker 1: that you say it may sound melodramatic, but it isn't. Um. Yeah,
59:02
Speaker 1: so can you. I guess to close this out because
59:05
Speaker 1: this we have talked. We've talked a little bit about
59:08
Speaker 1: those things, about how the black community and the gay
59:12
Speaker 1: community has given us so much and they've been like
59:14
Speaker 1: these innovators in language. And you have a chapter on
59:17
Speaker 1: the gay voice, and while lesbians don't really have the
59:20
Speaker 1: gay voice, and I feel like they are, there's so
59:24
Speaker 1: many things we do take for granted. And just to
59:29
Speaker 1: tag on because this is a complete sub different subject,
59:31
Speaker 1: but I know you talk a lot about gender specifically,
59:33
Speaker 1: and obviously that's a really big topic right now with
59:37
Speaker 1: some of the um things with our novelists who people
59:41
Speaker 1: want to love. I'm not going to call her she
59:43
Speaker 1: who shall not be named, but just that conversation, I
59:48
Speaker 1: know you had a whole chapter on that, and I
59:50
Speaker 1: found it really fascinating because you kind of just instead
59:52
Speaker 1: of like being antagonistic, you took down the actual history
59:57
Speaker 1: of it. So if you can align both of those things. Yeah,
1:00:01
Speaker 1: I know that's different. No, No, that no, I think
1:00:03
Speaker 1: like I think the through line really is that, you know,
1:00:08
Speaker 1: there's there was some French philosopher who said that language
1:00:13
Speaker 1: is the medium for humans, just as water as to fish,
1:00:16
Speaker 1: Like we create the world with language. We don't just
1:00:21
Speaker 1: reflect it, we don't just describe it. We actively create
1:00:26
Speaker 1: the world through the repetition of language, through everything we say.
1:00:30
Speaker 1: And that's a a theory called linguistic performativity, and it
1:00:34
Speaker 1: was in part pioneered by the feminist icon Judith Butler,
1:00:38
Speaker 1: who talked about gender performativity. And that's a whole that
1:00:41
Speaker 1: that's kind of that's like gender studies class now. But um,
1:00:46
Speaker 1: but it is it is so true that we cultivate
1:00:50
Speaker 1: our beliefs through language. There is no other way to
1:00:54
Speaker 1: do it. We don't have beliefs without language what we do.
1:00:58
Speaker 1: And that's another theory called linguistic determinism versus linguistic relativism. Um.
1:01:03
Speaker 1: But yeah, but um. And this actually relates to you know,
1:01:08
Speaker 1: some of what I'm I'm writing about in the cult
1:01:10
Speaker 1: book UM as well is that, you know, ideology could
1:01:14
Speaker 1: not be instilled or proliferated without language. And so the
1:01:21
Speaker 1: way that we describe things, whether it's gender or sexuality
1:01:26
Speaker 1: or race, it not only you know, reflects what we believe,
1:01:31
Speaker 1: but it creates a world. It creates a system of beliefs,
1:01:35
Speaker 1: the culture of beliefs. And so becoming aware of the
1:01:41
Speaker 1: histories of some of these words and the history of
1:01:43
Speaker 1: how language develops, UM can really better. It can help
1:01:49
Speaker 1: us make better informed decisions about how we want to
1:01:52
Speaker 1: use language. It can help us create the world that
1:01:57
Speaker 1: we want to live in, or continue to perpetuate a
1:02:00
Speaker 1: world that that isn't equal and that is problematic, and
1:02:04
Speaker 1: that is oppressive. And this isn't stuff that we learn
1:02:07
Speaker 1: in elementary or middle or high school. We don't learn
1:02:10
Speaker 1: about these things. We just come to use language. So naturally,
1:02:14
Speaker 1: and so my whole mission with with socio linguistics, and
1:02:18
Speaker 1: it's one that I so hope continue is far past
1:02:22
Speaker 1: what I'm able to write, is that I don't want
1:02:27
Speaker 1: to police anyone's language or force anyone to say anything.
1:02:31
Speaker 1: I don't want my language to be policed. I don't
1:02:34
Speaker 1: want people to tell me that I can't name my
1:02:35
Speaker 1: book words let I don't want people to tell me
1:02:38
Speaker 1: that singular they is ungrammatical. I don't want people to
1:02:41
Speaker 1: tell me any of that stuff. But really, what this
1:02:45
Speaker 1: information and why I'm so grateful to these linguists, why
1:02:49
Speaker 1: this stuff is important, is because it's allowing us to
1:02:52
Speaker 1: become more educated, so then we can make our own
1:02:56
Speaker 1: decisions about how we want to use language to create
1:02:59
Speaker 1: the role that we want to see. UM. And you know,
1:03:03
Speaker 1: there's this amazing linguist that I talked to a ton
1:03:05
Speaker 1: for this book named law Zaman, who UM studies language
1:03:09
Speaker 1: and gender, particularly is it relates to transgender communities. He's
1:03:12
Speaker 1: at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and he and I,
1:03:16
Speaker 1: he and I were really share a lot of of
1:03:19
Speaker 1: points because you can get really pessimistic about a lot
1:03:23
Speaker 1: of things. UM, particularly when you see how like whenever
1:03:27
Speaker 1: there's a push for inclusive language, a lot of the
1:03:30
Speaker 1: times the opposition is like more powerful than the initial
1:03:35
Speaker 1: than the initial movement, and you have all this backlash
1:03:38
Speaker 1: and all this hate speech because people don't want to
1:03:41
Speaker 1: see language change, because people don't want to see culture change. Um.
1:03:46
Speaker 1: But he's incredibly optimistic, and like the last line in
1:03:50
Speaker 1: in my book, UM says, like he says, I have
1:03:54
Speaker 1: to be optimistic to make it through. You have to
1:03:56
Speaker 1: believe it's possible. You know you have and this and
1:03:59
Speaker 1: this has to do with activism, It has to do
1:04:00
Speaker 1: with language, It has to do with everything. Like you
1:04:03
Speaker 1: have to believe that if you put forth the effort
1:04:08
Speaker 1: to educate yourself and make sure that your actions and
1:04:10
Speaker 1: your language is reflecting that education, you have to believe
1:04:14
Speaker 1: that that will create a better world. And and language
1:04:18
Speaker 1: is a is an incredibly peaceable way to do that.
1:04:20
Speaker 1: And you don't even have to leave your house. Um.
1:04:23
Speaker 1: So you know, language change and ideological societal cultural change
1:04:28
Speaker 1: go hand in hand. You cannot force someone to use
1:04:31
Speaker 1: language a certain way and expect their ideology to follow.
1:04:36
Speaker 1: So you have to get people on board with the
1:04:38
Speaker 1: ideology first. But if you are already on board with equality,
1:04:42
Speaker 1: with gender, equality, with you know, with certain sexual and
1:04:47
Speaker 1: gender identities that maybe weren't approved of fifty years ago,
1:04:50
Speaker 1: with racial quality, then goodness knows, our our speech and
1:04:55
Speaker 1: our language should reflect that. And you know, what I'm
1:04:59
Speaker 1: trying to do is give people the tools to make
1:05:02
Speaker 1: that happen. Just some of the tools. UM. So that
1:05:04
Speaker 1: those are kind of generalized statements, but they can apply
1:05:07
Speaker 1: to to so many communities. I think, yes, um, and
1:05:13
Speaker 1: thank you so much for for joining us and having
1:05:16
Speaker 1: this conversation, for writing the book. Um, there's so many
1:05:19
Speaker 1: things listeners, if you want to know, like about the
1:05:21
Speaker 1: history of gender, which is much shorter than I thought
1:05:24
Speaker 1: it was history, The word gender, yeah it is. Yeah,
1:05:29
Speaker 1: I was like, what the history of curse words? Um?
1:05:34
Speaker 1: Our thoughts about sex, which we didn't get to get into.
1:05:37
Speaker 1: But how words shape our our thoughts about sex and
1:05:40
Speaker 1: our bodies. That's all in this running of the Gamut book.
1:05:44
Speaker 1: The defense of y'all, which I really appreciated since here
1:05:48
Speaker 1: in the South, as Georgians, we definitely really appreciated that.
1:05:52
Speaker 1: Oh hell yeah, I will always go to bat for
1:05:55
Speaker 1: you all. I have felt so judged for so long,
1:05:58
Speaker 1: but I feel it's being more accepted now. Yeah. Um, okay,
1:06:03
Speaker 1: the listeners where they can find you, where they can
1:06:07
Speaker 1: get your book, all those things. Yeah yeah. You can
1:06:10
Speaker 1: find me on Instagram at Amanda Underscore Montell and there
1:06:14
Speaker 1: I postum some little short mini lessons about language and gender.
1:06:19
Speaker 1: Um quite a lot. So if you want even more
1:06:21
Speaker 1: of the stuff in micro doses, you can find it
1:06:24
Speaker 1: there um. And then you can find word Slut wherever
1:06:27
Speaker 1: books are sold. It's also available in e book and audiobook.
1:06:30
Speaker 1: And I recorded it so nice, nice, Well, thank you again,
1:06:36
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Definitely go check
1:06:39
Speaker 1: Amanda out. Listeners, go read word Slut. It was a
1:06:42
Speaker 1: very fun, wonderful read um. And if you would like
1:06:47
Speaker 1: to find out as you can, you can email us
1:06:48
Speaker 1: at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at i heeart media dot com.
1:06:51
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram at stuff I've Never
1:06:53
Speaker 1: Told You, are on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks
1:06:56
Speaker 1: as always to our superproducer Andrew Howard. Thanks and thanks
1:07:00
Speaker 1: to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You. His
1:07:02
Speaker 1: protection of I Heeart Radio for more podcasts from I
1:07:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, but the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
1:07:06
Speaker 1: wherever you listened to your favorite shows,