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 News: Welsh joins the Star Wars club
29:30 Related or Not: Theme from Hugh
30:25 Related or Not 1: cute and acute
34:48 Related or Not 2: skip
42:22 Related or Not 3: tribe, tribute, & tributary
46:51 Karen Stollznow on psycholinguistics
50:36 Language and animal communication
53:37 Skepticism in linguistics
59:48 Getting a book done
01:02:09 The attraction of taboo words
01:08:18 Daddy diaries and child language acquisition
01:15:00 False friends
01:19:09 Best way to learn a language?
01:22:05 Public awareness of linguistics
01:26:58 Word of the Week: forever war
01:29:56 Word of the Week: aegyo
01:31:20 Word of the Week: meat proxy
01:33:46 Word of the Week: Cyberno de Bergerac
01:37:31 Comment: vague v ambiguous
01:39:24 Comment: Okay if languages die?
01:41:59 Comment: Sudoku pronunciation in Japanese
01:43:20 The Reads
01:56:02 Outtake: Hedvig watches an eclipse
02:00:18 Outtake: Glottle
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Become a Patron!Show notes
‘Systemic racism at work’: Sydney council plan for compulsory English shop signage condemned as ‘kind of crazy’
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/16/systemic-racism-at-work-sydney-council-plan-to-make-english-compulsory-on-shop-condemned-as-kind-of-crazy-ntwnfb
How Claude’s text watermark works
https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-text-watermark
EU AI Act Article 50: Transparency Obligations for Providers and Deployers of Certain AI Systems
https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/50/
Spoon theory | Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory
Expertise before augmentation: a practical guide to using generative AI during research training
https://zenodo.org/records/18452320
Star Wars dubbed into Welsh for first time for S4C broadcast
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/04/star-wars-dubbed-welsh-s4c
List of literary works by number of translations | Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_works_by_number_of_translations
Karen Stollznow. Beyond Words: How We Learn, Use, and Lose Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/beyond-words/F1DDF85BC4DCFDCBAAF5F2BC1F7F0290
Karen Stollznow. Bitch: The Journey of a Word. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/bitch/C4C378FE9C9316A43A7DB60359835787
[Karen Stollznow in Psychology Today]
When Words Aren’t What They Seem: How false friends fool the brain.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/speaking-in-tongues/202609/when-words-arent-what-they-seem
Hormuz deal presses pause on Iran conflict, but fears of ‘forever war’ remain
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3365532/hormuz-deal-presses-pause-iran-conflict-fears-forever-war-remain
A Beginner’s Guide to The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
https://thefantasyreviews.com/2024/02/20/a-beginners-guide-to-the-forever-war-by-joe-haldeman/
friend with benefits | Wiktionary
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/friend_with_benefits
Why the internet is praising celebrities for their ‘natural aegyo’
https://www.dazeddigital.com/beauty/article/70378/1/internet-celebrities-natural-aegyo-jude-bellingham-alysa-liu-k-pop
Don’t be a meat proxy | Niklas Gruhn / Blog
https://gruhn.me/blog/2026-08-03/
What is a ‘meat proxy’? The new term for coworkers who blindly share AI output
https://www.businessinsider.com/meat-proxy-tech-new-term-ai-2026-8
Is a Christian Group Advertising ‘JesusWeen’ as Substitute for Halloween?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jesusween-substitute-for-halloween/
Portmonthteaus | Wordnik
https://www.wordnik.com/lists/portmonthteaus
Coconut water as blood plasma alternative?
https://www.abc.net.au/science/archive/articles/2014/12/09/4143229.htm
Tidal Locking | NASA
https://science.nasa.gov/moon/tidal-locking/
“This phenomenon, called “synchronous tidal locking,” sounds like a weird coincidence ― but it’s actually quite common. All the solar system’s large moons are tidally locked with their planets.”
Glottle
https://glottle.app
Transcript
Coming soon.