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Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
@GretchenAMcC
Now @gretchenmcc.bsky.social Internet Linguist. NYT bestselling author of BECAUSE INTERNET. Cohost @lingthusiasm. she/her 🌈
Montreal, Quebec
gretchenmcculloch.com
Joined November 2012
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Dec 18, 2023
    Not particularly active on here anymore, but if your social feeds need more linguistics, find me here: bluesky: bsky.app/profile/gretch… instagram: instagram.com/gretchen.mccul… mastodon: xoxo.zone/@gretchenmcc tumblr: allthingslinguistic.com newsletter: gretchenmcc.substack.com
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Dec 12, 2019
    Today in "linguists are not kidding when they say that language enables you to understand sentences that have never been said before in the entirety of human history"
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    Gus The Fox
    @GusTheFox
    Dec 11, 2019
    It’s just one fucking thing after another for eels isn’t it?
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    May 31, 2016
    Replying to @GretchenAMcC
    A+ fine print, would fine print again.
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Aug 25, 2020
    Replying to @GretchenAMcC
    brb translating "hwaet" as "bro"
    “Hwæt,” the first word of “Beowulf,” has no direct equivalent in modern English. Tolkien described it as “a note ‘striking up’ at the beginning of a poem,” calling the listener or reader to attention. In his translation, he rendered it as “Lo!,” following John Mitchell Kemble, whose influential 1837 translation was one of the earliest in modern English. Stephen Mitchell avoided picking any single word, apparently in response to new linguistic research arguing that “hwæt” was not an interjection but, rather, imparted an exclamatory tone to the entire sentence. Heaney went for “So,” explaining that he wanted his version of the poem to sound as if one of his Irish relatives were telling the story: “So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by / and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness. / We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns.” Other translators have opted for “Attend,” “Listen,” “Behold,” “Yes!” and—unfortunately—“What ho!” Headley’s version opens: Bro! Tell me we still
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Nov 4, 2020
    Me meeting Randall Munroe: hey, big fan of the comic, feel free to let me know if you ever have any linguistics questions! Randall Munroe:
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    XKCD Comic
    @xkcdComic
    Nov 4, 2020
    The True Name of the Bear xkcd.com/2381/ m.xkcd.com/2381/
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Jun 30, 2020
    i feel the need to make you aware of this cursèd and entirely real wikipedia article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_hund…
    The long hundred, also known as the great hundred or twelfty,[1] is the number that was referred to as "hundred" in Germanic languages prior to the 15th century, which is now known as 120, one hundred and twenty, or six score.
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Jul 16, 2018
    |￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| Internet writing uses subtle punctuation choices to convey sarcasm and other tone of voice nuances. It's not lazy. |＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿| (\__/) || (•ㅅ•) || / 　 づ #LinguisticsSignBunny
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Jan 3, 2022
    Today in "linguists are not kidding when they say that the creative property of languages means you can understand sentences that have definitely not been said before"
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Jul 16, 2018
    |￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| Asking which language is the hardest is like asking which place is the farthest. It depends on where you start. |＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿| (\__/) || (•ㅅ•) || / 　 づ #LinguisticsSignBunny
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Jan 12, 2021
    The young people that I've surveyed on this often find "Dear" uncomfortably intimate, like calling your professor your darling. They see Hello as professional (Reports from other prof friends suggest that they're very willing to adapt if you just tell them what you want though!)
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Jul 16, 2018
    |￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| Linguistic peevery is a poorly-concealed cover for racism, classism, sexism, and other discrimination |＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿| (\__/) || (•ㅅ•) || / 　 づ #LinguisticsSignBunny
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Apr 23, 2023
    It has come to my attention that we're in thesis defense season and not everyone has seen the snake fight thesis defense fanfiction archiveofourown.org/works/28299630
    From: Kahler, Robin M. <kahler22@barnett.edu> Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2020 9:25 AM To: Petroski, Linda <petroski5@barnett.edu> Subject: Thesis defense issue Hi, Linda- I just realized that I never got an email about the snake for my defense (coming up next week). Do you know anything about how the snake gets assigned? Thanks- Robin
    464K
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Apr 3, 2019
    I have cited AO3's taxonomy and archiving systems as models at academic linguistics conferences because they are IMPRESSIVE as usable, durable, well-designed systems, and frankly academia could stand to learn from fandom here
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    Macey丨Jennifer Mace
    @englishmace
    Apr 3, 2019
    fuckin' this, folks. and I mean you KNOW I am here for fanfic, now and always, but that is NOT what this nomination is about! do you know how advanced an archival system ao3 is? the ways its indexing and DB structure improve discoverability for MILLIONS of readers?
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    Gretchen McCulloch now at @gretchenmcc.bsky.social
    @GretchenAMcC
    Dec 15, 2021
    I just found out about the Finnish "formally neutral but informally reverential pronoun, that in spoken use is almost exclusively used sarcastically to communicate that this person actually is not respected" (often used for pets) keuhkopussirotta.tumblr.com/post/670545996…
    I know a whole lot of finns have already made posts about this (and with my notoriously shit memory, I may have already written one too), but too late, I can't be stopped: Finnish pronouns. I can't recall where I got any of this info, and if someone who knows better can verify whether I'm right or wrong, I welcome it. The finnish language has the pronouns hän, which is she/he, and se, which is "it". In official written finnish, hän is the pronoun used of people and people alone, and se is of animals and inanimate objects. But this is where it gets funny. Written finnish is different from all dialects of spoken finnish - no spoken form of finnish naturally uses the pronoun hän in normal conversation. The entire human pronoun was introduced to the finnish language artificially, as the men who translated the bible to it felt it was ungodly to not at least have a distinct pronoun for beings with an immortal soul However, the attempts to introduce the new pronoun soon ended up somewhere
    along the lines of "ok fine, you can call each other whatever, but the king and God are Hän (and please show up to church sober)", so the whole pronoun more or less ended up as a linguistic equivalent of those fancy plates your grandparents have in a glass cabinet for Extremely Special Guests, and nobody is actually fancy enough to require such formality. Regardless, this has stuck to spoken finnish, but mainly as a stylistic choice of sardonic people, sarcastically using "hän" of people they do not actually respect, heavily implying that this person has far too high opinion of themselves and their own importance. Hän funnily enough also emerges when some people talk about their pets, though the sarcastic implication of "this person considers themselves more important than they truly are" is there - a bossy, spoiled tiny dog is hän the same way your snobbish and difficult great-aunt is.