148: On the Mark (with Florence Hazrat)
Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
Release Date: 10/11/2026
148: On the Mark (with Florence Hazrat)
Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
Commas, em dashes, apostrophes, and interrobangs. We use them for timing, for grammar, and even for social purposes. But these little marks didn't just arise overnight. Dr Florence Hazrat fills us in on the history and meaning of these symbols. Florence is the author of On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World. Timestamps 00:00 Start 01:48 Intros and hot punctuation takes (5:21) 06:13 Patreon plug: It's OnlyFans for your brain 11:37 News: Irish citizenship test 17:35 News: Bonobo compositionality maybe not a thing 22:36 Side note: How does disconfirmation...
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147: The Language Beat (with Michael Erard)
Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
Michael Erard has been covering language in major publications for a good long while. What has he learned, and what can linguistic communication take from his work? Michael sits down for a chat with Daniel and Hedvig to talk about his new book The Language Beat: Essays and Reporting on Language and Life. Timestamps 00:00 Start 01:21 Getting the book together: Save your contracts! 04:22 Getting into lingcomm 06:38 Popular things v things you're interested in 10:48 Getting the Spidey sense 19:30 Public reactions and book tour insights 23:22 Lingcomm involves a little bit of pastoral care 26:55...
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146: Beyond Words (with Karen Stollznow)
Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
How do children learn language, and why can't other animals? Why are false friends between languages always naughty? And how is public perception of language changing? Dr Karen Stollznow is taking us through a tour of psycholinguistics, taboo language, and linguistic skepticism with her new book Beyond Words: How We Learn, Use, and Lose Language. We're also taking a look at Bitch: The Journey of a Word. Timestamps 00:00 Start 00:32 Intros: Do you use Y'ALL? 06:46 New patron shoutout 08:07 News: Strathfield Council trying to control shop signage 17:37 News: Claude introduces watermarking 25:43...
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145: Face With Tears of Joy (live with Keith Houston and friends)
Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
Emoji, once regarded as some kind of frivolous nonsense, have become an important way we communicate online. But how did these little pictures come to our devices? What is the Unicode Consortium, and how did they get involved? And who is the Levitating Suit Guy? Fear not; author Keith Houston is here to give us the whole story in front of a live audience. Keith is the author of Face With Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji. Timestamps 00:00 Start 02:21 Introducing Keith Houston, author of Face With Tears of Joy 03:28 Put your top five emoji in chat 08:03 What's the state of emoji now?...
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144: Sociophonetics Deep Dive (with Jennifer Nycz, Lauren Hall-Lew, and Kelly Wright)
Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
Why don't we all sound the same? Are some accents easier to learn? And are there reasons for the differences in how people sound and sign, or is it just random? We use sound and sign to encode information about our age, place, gender, sexuality, and so much more. Sometimes we're not even aware of how we do it. But we're fixing that on this episode with Jennifer Nycz and Lauren Hall-Lew, editors of Sociophonetics: Implications for Phonological and Phonetic Theory. Timestamps 00:00 Start: Introducing Jennifer Nycz and Lauren-Hall Lew 01:57 What is sociophonetics? 03:01 What's in our own...
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143: How to Kill a Language (with Sophia Smith Galer)
Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
How does it feel to be isolated from a language and a culture that could have been yours? There are many paths to language loss, but there are also many ways back. Language revitalisation is now happening for communities and individuals. We're talking about it with journalist and lingToker Sophia Smith Galer, author of How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words. Timestamps 00:00 Start 00:34 Intros: How are you "going"? 05:54 News: A font that can poison data for GenAI 13:51 News: A lost Golden Age of language in the Holocene 27:33 News: New language support for...
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142: If This Be Magic (with Daniel Hahn)
Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
Translating Shakespeare takes a knowledge of language, culture, and poetry — both in English and in the target language. There are tradeoffs and pitfalls, but a skilled translator can bring Shakespeare closer to our age, not just to another language. We're talking with translator Daniel Hahn, author of If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation. Also, we're answering listener questions. Send us yours! Timestamps 00:00 Start 00:21 Intros: Shakespearean insults 07:33 Pronouncing SUDOKU: Why so variable? 15:58 Ingressive speech 20:46 Nonplussed 26:59 Related or Not: Theme...
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141: Why Q Needs U (with Danny Bate and Caitlin M. Green)
Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
Each letter in our Latin alphabet tells a story. But what about spaces? Or writing direction? Should we get rid of some letters, or could we even do with more? Here to answer all these questions is Dr Danny Bate, author of Why Q Needs U: A History of Our Letters and How We Use Them. Timestamps 00:00 Start 00:44 Intros: Special letters 05:46 News: Spanish okay at World Cup? 09:30 News: Forgetting is helpful in language acquisition 21:18 News: Bluey in Yolŋu 25:41 Related or Not theme by Jo 27:21 Related or Not: prodigy, prodigal, and prodigious 34:19 Related or Not: vice, device, divide 43:09...
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140: These Strange New Minds (with Christopher Summerfield and Caitlin Green)
Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
We created software that could generate human-like text output quickly and easily. Now we're dealing with the societal upheaval it's caused. What are the risks and rewards, and what can we learn about language from these large language models? Daniel — joined by Caitlin Green — has a chat with Dr Christopher Summerfield, author of These Strange New Minds: How AI Learned to Talk and What It Means. Timestamps 00:00 Start 00:46 Intros: Generative A.I. concerns 04:15 Shout out to our patrons! 05:03 News: AP Style Guide defines COUPLE 10:35 News: Men do vocal fry more 14:59 News: Uptalk...
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139: Magpie Syntax (with Stephanie Mason)
Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
Australian magpies are even cleverer birds than we thought. New research from Dr Stephanie Mason shows that they do two language-like things we used to think only humans could do: learn their calls socially, and combine their calls in a way that looks a lot like syntax. So are we calling this language? If so, how are the linguists taking it? Stephanie joins us to talk about magpies, media, and the territoriality of linguists. Timestamps 00:00 Start 00:54 Intros: Your favourite bird 07:10 What's coming up: Magpies 09:34 Join us! Patreon spruikery 11:32 News: Jamaican MP shut down for speaking...
info_outlineCommas, em dashes, apostrophes, and interrobangs. We use them for timing, for grammar, and even for social purposes. But these little marks didn't just arise overnight. Dr Florence Hazrat fills us in on the history and meaning of these symbols. Florence is the author of On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World.
Timestamps
00:00 Start
01:48 Intros and hot punctuation takes
(5:21) On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World
06:13 Patreon plug: It's OnlyFans for your brain
11:37 News: Irish citizenship test
17:35 News: Bonobo compositionality maybe not a thing
22:36 Side note: How does disconfirmation feel?
26:26 News: Analogies increase fidelity in language transmission
36:34 News: The Internet Archive is saving news footage
39:30 Related or Not: Theme from Camden
40:14 Related or Not 1: stick
44:32 Related or Not 2: vacation, vaccine, vacuum
46:10 Related or Not 3: Spot the pair
52:57 Interview with Florence Hazrat, author of On the Mark
55:09 Getting into punctuation
56:44 Punctuation is about prosody and…?
01:02:26 Misconceptions and playfulness in punctuation
01:04:45 Who were the heavy hitters in punctuation?
01:08:36 Punctuation as a democratising force
01:11:38 Hyphens and identity
01:14:59 English puts hyphens and spaces everywhere
01:20:14 How is digital communication changing punctuation?
01:23:57 Of dashes both em and en
01:30:33 Which punctuation marks have disappeared?
01:35:48 What punctuation should we be using, but don't?
01:38:15 Does punctuation help reading comprehension?
01:46:11 Conscious punctuation
01:49:19 Word of the Week: parachute
01:54:34 Word of the Week: Lake America
01:56:09 Word of the Week: doom trolling
02:05:44 Word of the Week: Naoero
02:06:46 Comment from Scott: Soo-ey! and Shakespeare
02:08:42 The Reads
Show notes
Why does French have circumflex letters?
https://thelanguagecloset.com/2022/05/21/french-circumflex-circonflexe/
Citizenship rules to be tightened with longer residency and language test
https://www.thejournal.ie/irish-citizenship-residency-changes-7154915-Sep2026/
White Australia policy | National Museum Australia
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/white-australia-policy
Dictation test passages used in 1925 | National Archives of Australia
https://www.naa.gov.au/students-and-teachers/learning-resources/learning-resource-themes/society-and-culture/migration-and-multiculturalism/dictation-test-passages-used-1925
[PDF] Aspects of Racism in the Australian Context: Issues of Definition and Action
Minister for External Affairs Atlee Hunt, in a 1903 memo to his staff: "It is not desirable that [coloured] persons should be allowed to pass the test . . . and before putting it to anyone the Officer should be satisfied that he will fail. If he is considered likely to pass the test if put in English, it should be applied in some other language of which he is ignorant."
https://www7.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AUJlHRights/1994/9.pdf
Structure without semantics: no evidence for bonobo compositionality in Berthet et al. (2025)
https://peerj.com/articles/21651/
Holding, Thomas, Paul E. Smaldino, and Charlotte O. Brand. “Analogies Evolve by Increasing Transmission Fidelity in the Communication of Complex Information.” Evolutionary Human Sciences 8 (2026): e32.
https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2026.10063.
TV News Search & Borrow | Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/tv
Jethro Tull - Aqualung (Instrumental)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVcsLJ3mixQ
Catherine the Great was inoculated against smallpox in a risky experiment. It changed Russia's history
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-22/catherine-the-great-russian-empress-inoculation-thomas-dinsdale/101405692
On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World, by Florence Hazrat
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/florence-hazrat/on-the-mark/9781541606494/?lens=basic-books
(01:39:46) All over me
On the Mark: Apple Books link
https://books.apple.com/us/book/on-the-mark/id6755950089
Richard Artschwager, Exclamation Point (Yellow), 2001
http://www.dreamideamachine.com/?p=81116
Broken Swedish words (split by accidental spaces) breaking translations
https://forum.readlang.com/t/broken-swedish-words-split-by-accidental-spaces-breaking-translations/5256
Tear Drops and Roses: Persian Punctuation by Florence Hazrat
https://mindthegap1.substack.com/p/tear-drops-and-roses-persian-punctuation
Irony punctuation | Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation
Mind the Gap | Florence Hazrat on Sunstack
https://mindthegap1.substack.com
Florence Hazrat on Instagram (@thepunctuationlady)
https://www.instagram.com/thepunctuationlady/
Labor’s Secret Harbour by-election loss is ominous
https://redflag.org.au/article/labors-secret-harbour-by-election-loss-is-ominous/
Political Parties, book by Duverger | Brittanica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Political-Parties
Political parties : their organization and activity in the modern state, by Duverger, Maurice, 1917- | Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/politicalparties0000duve/page/n9/mode/2up?q=parachuting
History of a concept: 'Parachute' candidates, an old electoral practice of politics taking precedence over roots
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/history/article/2022/06/17/history-of-a-concept-parachute-candidates-an-old-electoral-practice-of-politics-priming-over-roots_5987200_157.html
Parachute candidate | Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute_candidate
Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario ‘Lake America’ amid Canada trade war
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/27/trump-canada-lake-america-ontario.html
Coxon tweet
https://x.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843
Google engineer claims AI technology LaMDA is sentient
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-13/google-ai-lamda-sentient-engineer-blake-lemoine-says/101147222
OpenAI IPO will not happen in 2026 amid AI safety fears, Sam Altman says
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/12/openai-delays-ipo-sam-altman-ai-safety-concerns
Timnit Gebru tweet
https://x.com/timnitGebru/status/2098289939217846660
Dear AI Companies: Stop the “Doom Trolling”
https://calnewport.com/dear-ai-companies-stop-the-doom-trolling/
Cal Newport: Dear AI Companies: Stop the “Doom Trolling”
https://youtu.be/aHxwZEXHwps?si=7K5dLhu34NIRPRqm
The Thrill of Wanting AI to Destroy the World
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/09/ai-destroy-world-apocalypse/688575/
Nauru officially changes its name to Naoero
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/03/nauru-officially-changes-its-name-to-naoero
Shakespeare in the Bush
Bohannon, Laura (1971), from Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, eds. James P. Spradley and David W. McCurdy Boston: Little Brown and Company.
https://web.archive.org/web/20060613143803/http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~idris/Essays/Shakes_in_Bush.htm
List of typographical symbols and punctuation marks | Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typographical_symbols_and_punctuation_marks