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Spectacular Vernacular: Interrupting to Show We Care

Slate Daily Feed

Slate

Business, News, Society & Culture

3.91.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2021

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On today’s episode of Spectacular Vernacular, hosts Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer recap the recent New Ways of Analyzing Variation conference for sociolinguistics. They also interview Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and best-selling author about conversational style. And finally, Barry Lam, host of Slate’s philosophy podcast Hi-Phi Nation stops by for some wordplay. We hope you paid attention in your philosophy classes for this next quiz! You could win a year’s membership to Slate Plus. Do you have any language questions or fun facts to share? Email us at spectacular@slate.com. Produced by Jasmine Ellis. Subscribe to Slate Plus. It’s only $1 for the first month. To learn more, go to slate.com/spectacularplus. Here are some notes and references from this week’s show: NWAV 49 (the 49th annual meeting of New Ways of Analyzing Variation) Tweet by Cindy Noir (@Ebonie_QT) that inspired people to record Memojis code-switching between “home voices” and “work voices” Ben’s 2011 New York Times essay, “Twitterology: A New Science?” Twitter’s new Academic Research track Deborah Tannen’s recent New York Times essay on cooperative overlapping, “In Real Life, Not All Interruptions Are Rude” Sari Rachel discussing cooperative overlapping on TikTok Deborah Tannen’s 2005 book, Conversational Style Barry Lam’s philosophy podcast, Hi-Phi Nation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Tonight, siblings will squabble, couples will clash, bodies will brawl, over dominoes.

0:06.2

When the doorbell rings, the only thing you'll hear is betrayal.

0:09.9

Because the best brings out the worst in us.

0:12.6

Dominoes, tearing loved ones apart since 1985.

0:17.9

Cause a commotion tonight with a tasty trio deal, large pizza, classic side and a drink, only 1999.

0:25.0

In 12th November 23, delivery charges may apply, TZC dominoes.co.uk

0:30.1

Dear Sly Price Riser, we praise you.

0:33.5

Your commitment to raising the bar is something to look up to.

0:36.6

When the world said this mobile contract's price is high enough, you said,

0:41.0

no, go higher.

0:42.9

Yeah, cheers to the bad mobile contracts out there for showing us how to make a good one.

0:48.2

One that would rather raise your data, not your prices.

0:51.3

Go to gifgaff.com and switch now.

0:53.4

Gifgaff, we're up to good.

0:55.4

18-month commitment assay payment method required.

0:57.4

Terms apply, see gifgaff.com for with slash terms.

1:02.7

Hello, I'm Nicole Holiday, a linguistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

1:06.6

And I'm Ben Zimmer, language columnist for the Wall Street Journal.

1:09.4

And this is spectacular vernacular, a podcast where we not only explore language.

1:13.5

We also play with it.

1:14.8

This week, our special guest is Professor Deborah Tannen, a professor,

1:18.2

a bestselling author and leading expert on conversational style and how we interact with each other.

...

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