Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch are the co-hosts of Lingthusiasm, a podcast that explores the weird, wonderful and surprising ways language works.
Gretchen McCulloch is the author of Because Internet, a New York Times bestselling book about internet language which has been translated into Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Gretchen has written for media including Wired, the New York Times, the Atlantic, Slate, the Wall Street Journal, and The Toast (RIP) as well as YouTube channels including Crash Course Linguistics and Tom Scott’s Language Files. In 2021, she received the Linguistics, Language and the Public Award from the Linguistic Society of America for her lingcomm work. She lives in Montreal, Canada and she’s on bluesky, instagram, and tumblr.
Lauren Gawne is an Associate Professor of linguistics at La Trobe University. Her work focuses on understanding how people use gestures and grammar, with a particular focus on cross-cultural gesture use, and the grammar of Tibetan languages in Nepal. Lauren also does research on emoji, constructed languages, and lingcomm. She lives in Melbourne, Australia and she’s on bluesky and mastodon and tumblr as Superlinguo.
Let’s Learn Everything!
Ella Hubber, Tom Lum, and Caroline Roper tackle a new science topic every week. We love them for their unbridled enthusiasm and chaotic curiosity.
This Guy Sucked
Claire Aubin and a weekly expert show us how being a hater can be its own form of enthusiasm, as they revisit the reputation of one person from history every week.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Alie Ward’s enthusiasm and curiosity bring the audience along with her to interview a different -ologist every week.
Hidden Brain
Shankar Vedantam brings thoughtful curiosity to stories about the science behind human behavior.
No Such Thing As A Fish
The enthusiastic fact-sharing team at Fish were a huge influence on our “yes, and” approach in shaping Lingthusiasm.
Science Vs
Who wouldn’t love a podcast where they let us know at the end of the episode how many citations they have?
You’re Wrong About
A podcast that started with a curiosity about maligned women and other mis-remembered 20th century history has grown into an exploration and enthusiasm for culture, from rainbows to crying at baseball.
Many Minds
Kensy Cooperrider interviews academic guests about minds: human, animal, and artificial. Learn about spiders, crows, children and all kinds of ways of thinking.
Gastropod
Food with science and history! We love Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley’s “facts and friends” dynamic and it was a big influence for our early conceptualisation of Lingthusiasm.
Lateral with Tom Scott
Tom Scott hosts this comedy panel game of weird questions and unexpected answers. Everyone learns something.
Lingthusiasm
There are so many patterns in the language we use every day that linguists have figured out but haven’t made their way into popular discourse yet. Hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne (that’s us!) get curious and enthusiastic about a new aspect of language each episode: you’re guaranteed to learn something new.
