July 15, 2020 • 58 mins
Samara chats with the author of “Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language” about the subtle ways our speech differs from men’s, and why. This is a conversation about how we talk, how we get judged, how we judge others, and what needs to change (and doesn’t!) so we can show up in the world as ourselves.
Host: Samara Bay
Executive producers: Catherine Burt Cantin & Mark Cantin, Double Vision doublevisionprojects.com
Producers: Samara Bay, Sophie Lichterman and the iHeart team
Theme music: Mark Cantin
“Wordslut” by Amanda Montell (new in paperback): indiebound.org/book/9780062868886
Amanda on IG: @amanda_montell
“Joining the Resistance” by Carol Gilligan: indiebound.org/book/9780745651705
“Boys & Sex” by Peggy Orenstein: indiebound.org/book/9780062666970
Email permissiontospeakpod@gmail.com with any questions about your voice and Samara will answer 'em in our next mailbag episode!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's quote is from Margaret Sanger in nineteen fourteen. Uh.
She was a serious hero and also seriously problematic and compromised,
but a real fighter for women's rights and especially for
reproductive rights. And she put this out in UM something
(00:22):
called Woman Rebel that she created with her sister in
nineteen fourteen, and this is the manifesto called Why the
Woman Rebel question mark. Because I believe that deep down
in woman's nature lies slumbering the spirit of revolt. Because
I believe that woman is enslaved by the world machine,
(00:44):
by sex conventions, by motherhood and its present necessary child rearing,
by wage slavery, by middle class morality, by customs, laws
and superstitions. Because I believe that woman's freedom depends upon
awakening that spirit of revolt within her against these things
which enslave her. Because I believe that these things which
(01:07):
enslave her must be fought openly, fearlessly, consciously. Welcome to
permission to speak the podcast about how we talk and
how we get ourselves heard with me, samar abe Hi, everybody,
(01:34):
Welcome back UM. Last week's episode was all about exploring
our biases around African American English, and this week with
a huge acknowledgment about how intersectional this all is and
how little fits neatly into strict categories. This week's episode
(01:54):
is sort of a part two, turning the spotlight on
biases around women's races, on how aspects of our speech,
the bits that sound a little different than men generally
or seem to are what people love to point out.
I'm talking about how much we say like or speak
(02:16):
in vocal fry. Vocal fry, for example, which, by the way,
quick Google search will tell you is definitely what is
holding you back from anybody taking you seriously. So our
guide through this episode. My guest is Amanda Montell. She
is a reporter and an essayist and the author of
(02:36):
word Slot, a feminist guide to taking Back the English Language,
which came out in paperback a few weeks ago, and
I wanted to have her on because that book is,
i mean, one of my all time favorite reads. Amanda
studied linguistics and undergrad and I think very much like
me sees in the study of how we talk a
(03:00):
window into so much of all of our actual real
life drama, the ways that we show up in the world,
the ways that we are treated, the ways we treat
others the ways we communicate our innermost thoughts for the
you know, chance at being truly understood, and also you
know what gets in the way of that. And I
do have to warn you that you will hear us
(03:20):
a geek out like so hardcore in this conversation and
go on some ridiculous tangents. But you may also feel
what I felt reading her book, which is like a
really deep sense of satisfaction and validation that how we sound,
all of our likes and vocal fry and up speak
and filler words are markers of our gender and in
(03:44):
some cases of our generation. And we can absolutely try
on different modes if we want, because we contain multitudes,
and you know, if you want suggestions on how, then
definitely listen to our upcoming mail bag episode. But this
is the big but we could also revel in how
much how each of us speaks is English in America
(04:08):
right now where we stand, we are it. Uh So
this is Amanda. First of all, will you tell the
people about um this French thing with la coovid and
what that says about UM. I think it's a good
(04:29):
way in honestly to talking about like how much more language,
uh oppresses or empowers us than we think it does. Yeah. Absolutely.
In France there is um a legitimate grammar police and
official um coalition of grammarians called Lacademy France. Says some
people might know this. It consists of mostly white dudes
(04:50):
named Gen. That is a fact. You can look it up. Um,
there are at least fourteen Gens on the board of
the Academy, Front says somehow, but anyway, they determine the countries.
It's true, they determine the country's official grammatical rules and
UM that includes the gendered noun classification of new words.
So you know, French is a grammatically gendered language where
(05:11):
every noun receives a masculine and feminine suffix. There are
dozens and dozens and dozens of languages like these throughout
the world. But it was just announced that Lady Frances
has determined that from now on, COVID nineteen is officially
a feminine noun law COVID nineteen. And there was some
which it wasn't which people were like it was generally
(05:32):
making it just generally masculine, and so they had to
kind of come in from above. You're correct, So people
were saying luke COVID nineteen with this masculine article UM,
and the French grammar police stepped in and they said, no, no,
these not these nuts. But they didn't say it in
English because moment like, we'll just we'll just say a
(06:00):
bunch of words that rhyme with French six yeah exactly.
D I don't know, I'll like say the four French
things I know how to say. Um. But this could
(06:21):
get really derailed really fast anyways. Um so they I mean,
their reasoning was that the word malady meaning illness is feminine,
and so we're gonna go with that, even though virus
is masculine. It it didn't make a whole lot of sense.
But um, you know this, this concept of a disease
(06:44):
being marked feminine, it might not sound um like, it
has a whole lot to do with human gender. You know,
every nound gets a gender assignment in France table eyeball,
they all do. But UM linguists have found that there's
um a quote unquot leakage that occurs between um, between
grammatical gender and how we perceive human gender. And this
(07:08):
shows up in in so many ways. One of the
ways is UM how we perceive so many esteemed professions.
And this is even true in English, but in a
grammatically gendered language like French, it's even more literal. Um. So,
so many esteemed professions in the French language are masculine
gender like professor and doctor um. But you know so
(07:29):
called girl jobs um, like secretaries and babysitters are marked feminine.
So when you know, law coronavirus was deemed indeed to
be feminine, it sort of reminded me of how in English,
a language that does not have any grammatical gender except
for our third singular pronouns he and she, we so
(07:53):
often refer to dangerous, complicated things with that pronouns she.
So countries, oceans, natural disasters, cars, ships, um. They these
are by no coincidence, you know, perilous, hazardous intrusions that
men have a long history of needing to, you know,
(08:14):
conquest and dominate and cure. You know, for the longest time, storms, um,
hurricanes were only named after women. And you know, thanks
to the second wave feminist movement, the like National Weather
Service or I forget who actually determined that UM came around, yeah,
and decided they were going to alternate between male and
(08:35):
female names. But um, there's actually there was this amazing
study by the way, that makes it feel like that's
the only place where we have gender parody now in hurricanes.
Oh yeah, that's great, that's great with hurricanes. Yeah, but
there was this, um, there was a study that a
bunch of linguists conducted in two thousand eleven. They published
this study in the General of Popular Culture that was
(08:55):
analyzing sexist souvenir t shirts that were sold in the
wake of Hurricane Katrina, and slogans included Katrina that bitch,
I got blown on piste on or I got blown on,
I got blown piste on and fucked by Katrina. What
a horror. Katrina can blow me. She won't keep me
away from Marty Grat two thousand six. So, like, that's
(09:17):
a very clear example of how, you know, and a
sensibly non human related piece of grammatical gender can really
inform how you're perceiving that entity. Right, So we don't
have this grammatical gender where, um, you know, there's say
and oh suffix on the end of words like surgeon
or doctor or professor or writer or actor. But you know,
(09:40):
these words are tacitly codd male, and we can hear
that when we um, when we hear things like female
scientist or woman doctor or lady doctor. Um, those things
really girl boss. Yes, I have a whole diet tribe
on girl Boss, but these things really yeah, you know,
ceo boss, entrepreneur, These these words are are tacitly coded
(10:02):
male in our culture. Um. And when we have to,
you know, modify them with an actively feminine modifier or
prefix or suffix or make it cute, see with some
feminine modifier, that really illuminates that sexist notion. So yes,
So so this is very broadly the ways that we
aren't necessarily thinking about how the language we use in
(10:23):
forms the way we think. There's also the other part
of it, which is the language we use coming out
of our mouth and how that affects how people perceive us,
which is something I'm talking about all the time. And
obviously as a dialect coach, Um, you know, my foundational
work in this was people coming to me and saying,
I literally need to change the way I'm perceived. Some
people think that in a subconscious way, but when they're
(10:44):
coming to a dialect coach, it's like gotten really conscious.
And there's this amazing quote here that you had um
in your book right at the beginning, where you said,
every part of our speech our words are intonation are
sentence structures, is sending invisible signals telling other people who
we are and how to treat us. Bulls. Same but true.
(11:07):
I mean I underlined it like that, not because I'm like,
how dare you? But because I'm like, well, isn't that
the fucking truth? Yeah? So linguists who study gender, which,
by the way, I feel like you have found all
of them and you have spoken to all of them.
So thank you for that. Um, it's it's like it's
actually relatively new. I mean, it's like our lifetimes and
(11:28):
you have this quote. One of the most exciting concepts
that this new crop of research shows is that women
possess a secret, badass arsenal of linguistic qualities that are
profoundly misunderstood and deeply needed in the world right now.
So can we talk about some of them? I want
to talk about Um, oh, here's one gossip? Sure. Yeah.
(11:51):
So gossip obviously has this incredibly negative connotation. Um. People
think that gossip is idle and petty and something that
only women do, whereas men's talk is banter, which is
more sophisticated and never stoops to discussing people who aren't
(12:12):
in the room. UM. And linguists have found that that's
I mean, you don't even need to be a linguist
to understand that that's profoundly untrue. UM. But there's there's
plenty of empirical data to support the fact that gossip
is really a serviceable and goal driven practice. UM. And
so there's this one linguist named Debra Cameron, who I
(12:34):
referenced a lot in the book, who's explained that when
you analyze it closely, gossip serves these three main purposes. UM.
And the first is to circulate personal information in order
to keep members of a social group in the know. UM.
The next is to bond with one another by establishing
the gossipers as an in group. And then the third
is to affirm the group's commitment to certain values or norms. UM.
(12:57):
And this is absolutely not a woman only pursued. It's
just that, UM. You know, the word gossip has been
deemed this sort of female word. That third part that
you described is so interesting. I don't remember exactly you
said reaffirming the social mora is but the idea of
like we don't we gossip when somebody breaks what seemed
(13:20):
to be kind of uh, you know, socially agreed upon
rules of politeness and civility. And that's interesting. It's not
always judging it, but it is like, whoa are you
allowed to break that rule? Can I break that rule?
If that person broke that rule? I mean it's like
the constant negotiation of like patriarchy, right absolutely, And you know,
obviously gossip is, in the eyes of the beholder, the
(13:42):
most the most damaging form of gossip, uh, in recent
history that I can think of, as obviously Trump's locker
room banter. I mean, what is gossip if not that
that was one, you know, talking about a person behind
their back. By the way, if only that was damaging
I know, right, like nobody cared, nobody cared. There was
(14:03):
two seconds there. Um, so okay, So another one this
is actually related. I want to talk about hedging. I
want to talk about jam sessions. The idea of a
conversation being a jam session is so inspiring. I know,
I I love that. I love that term. Um. It's
it's one that this linguist named Jennifer Coates came up
with to describe UM, the conversational style that exists in
(14:25):
in groups of of only women. And so there's this
chapter in my book called girl You're Right? How Women? No, wait,
what is the name of this chapter? I like, I
never get to talk about this chapter. No one ever
asks me about it UM for some reason. UM people always, oh,
it's called girl You're Right? How women talk to each
other when dudes aren't around UM. And so it sort
(14:47):
of explores some of the some of the more stigmatized
UM forms of the way that women speak UM when
they're in the company of selectively other women. But yeah,
one of the coolest observations that this linguists named Jennifer
Coates made was that she likened women's really distinct turn
taking structure of their conversations to a musical jam session UM.
(15:10):
And she said that, you know, the defining characteristic of
a jam session is that the conversational floor is potentially
open to all participants simultaneously. And you know, in in
these conversations, you might hear overlapping talk or UM speakers
repeating one another or rephrasing one another's words, and everyone
is really working together to construct meaning. And so this
(15:32):
like one at a time speaker rule, UM, which is
what we see in a lot of conversations among only men.
That rule doesn't apply because, you know, generally speaking, and
this is a generalization, when women engage in conversation, the
goal is to sort of construct solidarity and build a
conversation together. And so, you know, if you want to
(15:53):
picture it visually, the conversational floor is more horizontal. But
men view the conversational floor as more as as more
of an arena for individual achievement, and so it takes
more of a vertical structure. UM. And so yeah, when
when women engage in this jam session and they're interrupting
each other and overlapping and building on each other's sentiments,
(16:15):
this UM, this simultaneous speech or or interruption, it doesn't
threatened comprehension. You know, it's not seen as like a
rude interruption. It it actually permits a more multilayered development
of topics. UM. And this jam session structure is something
that you rarely find in exchanges of men. You know, you're, you're,
you're so rarely going to find a group of you know,
(16:37):
at least straight white men UM sitting around being like
oh yeah, oh, my god, yes with this with these
like active listening, to use um, minimal responses and tag
questions and things like that. And these are stigmatized forms
that are seen as rude, did see, frivolous, insecure, etcetera.
And this is where the word hedging comes into. This
idea of hedging as like adding in the word like
(16:59):
I've just one ring instead of I'm wondering. And you know,
some some versions of like although we're going to talk
about other versions of like, but the idea that these
things that that are coded as female are actually because
they helped build conversations, right right, So softening hedges um,
which are just absolutely dragged in popular media, and you
know trainers in the workplace who come in and teach
(17:21):
women how to speak professionally, Um, they're just like absolutely lambasted.
But these are terms like you know, just actually, I
mean well, etcetera, that are perceived as signs of uncertainty.
And some have argued that women have been conditioned to
use these softening hedges because just as we've been trained
to express uncertainty of our physical attractiveness, we've been taught
(17:44):
to express uncertainty of the conviction of our statements, and
so we've peppered our speech with just you knows and
wells in order to to soften them. And so then
we get this advice that we need to cut the
just you knows and other hedges in order to sound
more authoritative and to accommodate to um, this male standard.
But actually, linguists, and thank goodness for them, UM, have
(18:05):
you know, looked at at hedges in an empirical way
and found that they're not so simple and they don't
all serve the same purpose um, And they usually don't
communicate insecurity at all. In fact, what they what they
do is they form trust and empathy and conversation and
they really account for the face needs of everyone in
a conversation. And you know, women really need the interpersonal
(18:30):
tools of hedges more often than men do because we
so often delve into sensitive territory during our conversations. In
that same bit where Jennifer Coltsa is talking, she's she
specifically says that you know, there have been enough studies
that that she can say pretty decisively. Men do not
talk about sensitive subjects as frequently as we do. They
(18:51):
don't need that they avoid them rather than figuring out
ways that we have figured out over you know, six
thousand years of paid triarchal rule, to get into the
real stuff, to bond with people when we need to
bond with them, and to do it gently enough that,
as you say, people can save face so that bonds
can actually happen, and there's not like ripping people further apart,
(19:11):
but rather bringing them closer. Yeah, And what's sad is that, like,
there was this there was this book um published a
few years ago called Deep Secrets by um what's her name?
I think it's Neobi Way, and it explored the friendships
of young straight men. And what was kind of sad
was that, like she followed this group of boys through
adolescens and found that when they were little boys, friendships
(19:34):
with other boys were like just as intimate, just as
emotional as friendships between girls. But it wasn't until those
norms of masculinity sank in that the boys you know,
ceased to confide in one another, express their vulnerable feelings.
This you know, no homo creed became entrenched, and so
then you know, they felt they started to feel like
they couldn't rely on their bros for emotional support. They
(19:59):
couldn't engage in those jam sessions, it would be seen
as gay. And so you know, from then on, women
became the carriers of their emotional burdens um and only
in private. Yeah, there's a Peggy Ornstein book that just
came out about like called Boys and Sex that where
she like befriends them and sees that hardcore over over
a long period of time. The other thing I want
(20:19):
to throw out and then we totally have to take
a break is um. I was super influenced by this
book called Joining the Resistance. Everybody Joining the Resistance Carol Gilligan.
She's a linguist and also psychologist, and she talks all
about how we've all been trained that women. Most important
thing for women is relationships, most important thing for men
is self. And so in a way, we have to
(20:40):
not listen to ourselves in order to have relationships, and
boys have to not listen to relationship, not not prioritize
relationships because they have to be all about their individualism.
It is legit and so deep. And I'm raising a
little boy and I'm like, Okay, we're gonna take a
quick break and we're gonna be right back. Cool. Cool,
(21:06):
We're back with the vanda montell. Okay, like anyone who's
been listening to this conversation will surely have heard a
few of them by now. These ideas, this hedging over
using the word like these are so maligned, and it
is so clearly because of who not what right that's
completely correct. And that's something that I that I try
(21:27):
to get across as much as possible, is that our
judgments of people's speech, not only women, but all marginalized
groups um have so little to do with the language
itself and very much to do with our preconceived notions
of that population. And so you know, we perceive, for example,
African American vernacular English as quote unquote poor grammar, when
(21:48):
really like that is an incredibly legitimate dialect that you
will learn in linguistics one oh one. And there are
grammatical constructions in African American vernacular English that are so
much cooler than anything we have in quote unquote standard English.
That's not something to look down upon, it's something to
celebrate and aspire to. You know, so much of the
(22:09):
way that women speak, folks of color speak, really any
marginalized demographic speaks, is a product of It's really a
sign of their ingenuity but also a product of their oppression. UM.
And it's those two things working together to produce a
new linguistic form UM. And I try to, you know,
when I hear language that I don't recognize or I
(22:29):
don't understand, you know, because of my linguistics background, I
try my best, and I have this instinct already, but
I try to approach it with a sense of curiosity
and enthusiasm and adaptability, like what is this you know,
what what does this language mean? Why is it being used?
There's a really strong pull in UH, in linguistic circles
(22:50):
to be descriptivist instead of prescriptivest and that really means
that we're observing and we're interested. It does not mean
that we're saying there's any should And you know, obviously
what we're all pushing against UH is the is these
shouods that you know, whether the word is used or not,
the implication that there's a right way, and then there's
this um cute see or underminey other alternative thing we're doing.
(23:12):
It needs to get you know, beaten out of us. Yeah,
when I explain what a linguist is to people, because
a lot of people don't know, and I didn't even
know until I got to college. Um, because people think like, oh,
are you a grammarian, are you a speech pathologist? Are
you a translator? How many languages? How many languages? Yeah,
And I'm like, well, you know, it just so happens
(23:32):
that I speak foreign language. Um. But and that will
often be the case because linguists have this thing where
they love language. Um. But it's not necessarily relevant to
the work that linguists do. And obviously there are so
many different sub fields of linguistics syntax, semantic sponetics, spinology, um,
cycle linguistics, computational linguistics, and then of course socio linguistics.
(23:53):
But I like to tell people that linguistics is the
science of language, and I'm not interested in how people
should talk. I'm interested in how they do talk, and
I'm fascinated by it and delighted by it. Um. And
so you know, that's a that's just like a much
more fun way to approach it, because a lot of
people have the impulse to be kind of like a
pedantic curmudgeon when it comes to language change. Well, and
(24:14):
also to get back to what we were talking about,
when you're when you're curious and interested in like a scientist,
you know, sort of following the story to figure out
what's truth. The story emerges, and the story we're talking
about here is like eons of oppression and what it's done.
And I have this amazing quote ready here from page
one of your book. You said, the ways in which
(24:36):
women and many other socially oppressed folks empower themselves with
language are all rather connected. There exists a long history
of marginalized groups innovating linguistically to build themselves up, and
they're clearly very good at it because the rest of
the world invariably ends up talking just like them. That's right.
Half a generation later. Yeah, So, time and time again,
(24:57):
linguists have found that women are our culture as linguistic innovators.
Um And. There are a lot of theories as to
why that is, but my favorite is that women use
language as a form of social power in a culture
that doesn't give them a lot of other ways to
do that. Um and I have some specific examples of
how that works. But I can talk about like if
(25:18):
you want, because it's one of my my favorite things
to talk about, So, like, can we just talk about Hello?
It really is I mean. Um, that's by the way,
Amanda and I have never actually met before, and I mean, granted,
I don't know if this counts as meeting for the internet,
(25:38):
but like I'm like, hi, yeah, like, but I feel
like we have because our personalities are strong and they
come through even over Instagram. I think he yes, b
I also think that I just saw your MirOS Briggs,
and I think we might be the same. Yeah. Um,
(26:00):
which might be why I think we both kind of
carry the mantle of like the person who wants to
like turn some of this stuff that can be accidentally
hidden away in academia into something that's that's available for
public consumption and that's fun and that's young, and that's us.
I'm a populist bitch, Like I'm not getting a PhD. Yep. Yeah.
(26:21):
When I was like interviewing linguists for my book, some
of them were so kind and so generous with their
time and really supportive of what I was trying to do,
and some were offended, like who are you? I question
your background, I question your motives. Um, So academic academia
can be really um crotchety. Yeah. Well, and the whole
(26:47):
idea that like it's it's suspect that you'd want to
make their work public. I mean I also I I
coached uh years ago at this place called the Alan
Alda Center for Communicating Science with scientists helping them, you know,
talk about their work with passions that they could actually
get funded or actually like inspire the next fucking generation.
And they had some resistance, some of them because they
(27:09):
have been it's been so beaten into them that just
to tell any personal stories, to bring any emotion, even
if the emotion is passion not like sadness, into the room,
is to be disqualified as a scientist. So there's some
like cultural stuff going on within the subculture of academia
that is probably helping no one. Yeah, so my parents
(27:29):
are research scientists. I come from like a long line
of PhD s. My grandparents. My dad is an astrophysicist.
So see, yeah, my parents or my grand my grandparents
were back to theologists. My mom is a cancer cell biologist,
my dad is a neuroscientist. Um, and they've done things
at the alan Alda Center. My parents are are well,
they're in academia, but they're also sort of populist. And
(27:52):
my mom actually was trying to get her own book.
Deal my mom wanted to write word sleat but for
like embryology on um but like no, but she's gonna
she's gonna publish it with an academic press because like
popular presses were like what no, so, but tell me
(28:14):
about like I got way off track? Um okay, so
like like is obviously one of the most criticized lampooned
speech qualities in the English language today. You know, when
people make fun of teenage girls, they say things like
and then I was like and she was like and
you were like and like like like like like um,
(28:36):
and people think that, you know, all likes are the
same and they're just a blatant sign of dizziness and
that if you don't know what you're saying, and if
you're a ding dong in a turkey, then you're going
to use like all over the place. Um. But despite
the words detractors, you know, like is actually extremely useful
and versatile, and linguists have found that there are six
(28:59):
completely stinct forms of the word like. They're all hominems,
just like you know, the noun watch meaning the time
piece on your wrist, and the verb watch meaning what
you do with your eyes when you turn on the
TV or hominems. And you know, the two oldest forms
of like in the English language are the verb like
and the adjective like, as in the sentence, um, oh,
(29:22):
I like your backdrop. It looks like something out of
the jungle. I'm complimenting the beautiful backdrop I'm seeing right now.
But um, those you know, those two forms are that
they sound exactly the same, so most people don't even
notice that they're these separate words with separate histories. Um.
And they they're both so old that, you know, we've
(29:44):
had a lot of time to get used to them.
They and men use them too, Yeah, and men use
them to like nobody nobody complains, But yeah, they come
from these two incredibly old old English words. One is
leak and one is lysian. Um. My audiobook engineer taught
me how to pronounce those two old English words. UM.
(30:04):
So I'm I'm grateful to her for that, Thanks Cassandra
shout out. But um, they're these four new likes that
have developed much more recently than that. And these are
all separate words with distinct distinct uses to um. And
only two of these likes are used more frequently by
women and only one of them was pioneered by young
southern California females in the nineteen nineties, which is where
(30:25):
we get that value are all stereotype from. And that
one is my favorite one, and it's the quotative like,
which you would hear in a sentence and I was like,
oh my god, what are you saying? And she was like,
I know, right, And this like is super useful because
it allows you to tell a story, to like relay
something that happened without having to quote the interaction for batim.
(30:46):
So if I were to say, um, oh yeah, and
then my boss was like, I need those papers by Monday,
and I was like, are you fucking kidding me? I'm
not saying what actually happened, but instead saying what I
you know, wish it happened, or or being the spirit
of the interaction. And this incredibly useful quotative like has
continued to explode in popularity since the nineties. So then
(31:10):
there are two more forms of the word like, and
these are hedges. One is a discourse particle and one
is a discourse marker, and they are very similar. They're
used to you know, connect or organized, or express a
certain attitude with um with your speech. And so the
discourse particle you would hear in something like, oh, that
backdrop is like my favorite thing I've seen all day,
(31:31):
But the discourse marker would be like that backdrop, it's
really cute. UM. And the discourse particle is used. The
discourse particle is used just as much by men and women.
It's used in equal measure, and so it isn't ridiculed
as much. It's really only the forms of the word
like that are used a little bit more by women
(31:54):
that receive such heavy criticism. UM. And then the last
form of the of like is the approximate adverb, which
has been around since, which has replaced the approximate adverb
about in casual conversation. And so nobody ever complains, and
you would hear that in um, I uh, I bought
this sweatshirt like two years ago. UM. And so because
(32:18):
it's been around for a while and men and women
both use it, um, nobody has any problem with it.
And so objectively that we can see that using one, two,
or all of these likes in the same sentence UM
isn't inherently a bad thing. And so I like to
tell people, you know, if you get criticized for saying
the word like too much. You can ask them, oh, really,
(32:38):
which kind um? Because a lot of the time, you know,
people ridicule like so heavily um, just because they don't
realize that there are these six different forms um, and
they blame women for all of them. And if we
were using any words six different ways, um, we're bound
to hear it more often. That's an interesting point. Yes,
(32:59):
a hundred or sent. There was this really funny quote
from The New Yorker a few years ago, UM where
someone said, if men had pioneered all of these different likes,
we would be reading the like New Yorker. But you know, well,
you know, but like you know, um, Yes, I very
memorably because it's like, really, I had it to take
(33:21):
a moment with this. I gave a talk which I've
talked about on this podcast before for people before, and
it was it was very well received, and I had
some friends in the audience who happened to be walking
out at the end behind two older women who said,
quote unquote, do you think she was using all those
likes on purpose? Well? And so I I really wrestled
(33:44):
with when I heard that I was part of me
got instantly ashamed, which is you know, the total like
conditioning that we should not be saying like so much
without questioning why we shouldn't be saying like so much.
Uh so that I absolutely got hit with that, and
then of course afterwards, like moments afterwards, the second hit
that I got was like, yeah, yeah, I'm an authority
(34:06):
figure who can stand on a stage and have those
two women think I gave a great talk and have
them wonder if I was using like on purpose because
it is a marker of my particular generation and identity. Right,
Oh yeah, I want some Working as a beauty editor,
which was my old career, um I, we had this
(34:26):
duo of media trainers come in to sort of evaluate
and give the editors pointers on how we should conduct
ourselves on camera where we to do like a bunch
of Facebook lives or whatever the funk back when Facebook
Live was like a major thing. Um And I remember this, Uh,
this colleague and I she was also in her early twenties,
(34:46):
were assigned to just like sit down and engage in
a spontaneous conversation and we were going to be judged
on our you know, how we seemed and how we
came across and I remember the media trainer just like
laid into me for saying like too much. You know,
she was telling me about how inauthoritative it made me
(35:07):
sound in blah blah blah. Little did she know you
would literally become the authority on life by the Well,
the funny thing was that, like, I was working on
my words let book proposal at the time, and so
I was just sort of, you know, chuckling to myself.
But then the crazy part was that she said at
the end, she was like, I mean, all that said,
he came across as very likable, extremely likable, like I
(35:28):
want to be your best friend. Like, and I was like, secretly,
I know that it was very much my authenticity of
speech and my relaxed nature, um that allowed me to
come across as so likable. And in fact, linguists have
found that speech lacking in likes and you knows, can
cause someone to come across as too robotic or stiff
(35:51):
or unfriendly and um, so I just thought that that
was funny, but it but it reminded me that, like,
you know, well, it reminded me of a couple of things.
First of all, so much of the criticism and this
is you know, relevant to your story too. That women
get of their speech comes from other women who are
older and had to accommodate to these really problematic linguistic standards,
(36:15):
and so they're then perpetuating those standards and figuring, you know, well,
if I had to go through this struggle and if
I had to accommodate, then that's part for the course
and you should have to too. But you know, hopefully
when the younger generation becomes the boss, and you know
I have and I have assistance or not multiple assistance.
I have one assistant now, um, and so I would
(36:36):
never judge her for for using the word like I would.
I would never perpetuate those same um problematic standards. And
I try to encourage other women that when they become
the boss one day to um resist doing that and
to create a more empowering environment for women and to
not create that environment. So this is the question, right.
I want to bring it back to a few like
(36:58):
really attempt at solid pieces of advice here, and one
of them, one of them is around this idea of
what does it mean to work on having a powerful
voice or coming across as authoritative while also not denying
you know, the ways that we talk because they're they're
a part of our natural voice. And it's a challenge.
I mean, you know, for some people it is about um.
(37:21):
I mean, I've certainly been in a position of telling
people that the way that they are vocal frying at
the end of their thought, where like they'll say something
that matters, like it sounds like it matters, but then
they'll say like, but I don't know, right, or something
that has gives the quality of but I don't know
is extremely useful and totally valid in those interaction jam sessions.
(37:42):
And but if they're giving a talk, it's an interesting
opportunity to see what does it sound like in my
voice to get to the end of the thought, Like
I believe myself all the way to the end, even
if it feels weird. And see, does that person also
live in me if she doesn't find right? But what
if she does? And we've just been also socialized into
this stuff that works in one context but less than another. Right,
(38:03):
So I think context is incredibly important with language, right,
Like context is everything obviously, you know, and that and
that can apply to things like you know, the use
of vocal fry and up speak and like, um, whether
you're using those in natural, everyday conversation or using them
in a presentation. It's also true when we're talking about
gendered insults like bitch and slut. You know, if I
(38:26):
am talking to my friend, I'm like, yes, bitch, you
bad bitch, I'm so glad you had a slutty night.
The context is so different than if someone is using
the words bitch and slut as as terms of abuse.
So context is of primary importance when we're talking about language. Um.
But yeah, I think like obviously, in certain by the way,
(38:48):
that was the discourse particle like um that I just used.
Always like to point that out. Um, But yeah, I
think there are there's a time and place for our
most natural speech, and there's a time and place for
a slightly more heightened and formalized version. Obviously, when I'm
writing my book, I'm not going to put just and
you knows and wells everywhere. Um. And there are people
(39:11):
who do write like that, Like there are people who
do hedge in their writing to create a certain casual effect.
But I'm trying to write an authoritative linguistics book that's
fun and accessible. But I would actually argue that you did,
that you that you that you really honed in on
a third way, like there is the informal and there's
the formal, but then there's also conversational writing, which is
(39:34):
different than than unconversational writing that would sound bad out loud,
you know. And I think you and I are probably
both playing in that way of like how do we
sound like a human on the page, but also yes,
take out the things that we don't need because we're
not actually asking the other person to they understand what
we're saying. You know, as I've said on this podcast,
my actual real intention is how to help people use
their voice to get what they want. It's not how
(39:56):
to use your voice regardless of what you want, yeah,
and in regardless of what on text, right, And I
think something that we both are super jazzed about is
that language exists in order to do something. Yeah, exactly exactly.
And you know we were talking about code switching before,
and that's a that's a queue that we can take from,
you know, speakers of African American Vernacular English who also
(40:18):
speak Standard American English. It's like we need to be
able to drop into different registers according to the situation
at hand. UM, and I certainly have different registers. You know,
I have my like my boyfriend will overhear me talk
in my um Amanda University Instagram register and then talk
in my when I'm interviewing a source for my book,
(40:39):
I have a completely different register. And UM, we were
talking about how I volunteer on a crisis lifeline. I
have a totally different form of speech when when that's
the context, and then I have the you know, the
the voice that I use what I'm talking with my friends.
I have the voice that I use what I'm talking
in a public event. You know, we we need to
be able to adjust according to the situation. And that's
(41:02):
not to put any pressure on anyone to um, you know,
have to radically alter their speech because something else that
I want to communicate is like, really the most important
thing is authenticity, Like talk about something you care about.
And you know, you can listen to the spin doctors
and the vocal coaches all you want, but if your
speech sounds inauthentic and stilted, you're not going to be
(41:26):
compelling and you're not going to get across what you
need to get across. And part of what's what's the
deal with my with like my ethos around around voice coaching.
Is that where I'm what I'm trying to get for
authent you know, quote unquote authentic voices from people is
that they're talking about the things that matter to them
in a way that sounds like it matters to them.
And we've often have that sort of socialized out of us.
So having to get a little boost to be like, oh,
(41:48):
what does it feel like to actually breathe and feel
my feelings and be you know, giving myself permission to
do that so that I can actually like let my
authentic self out and not just hide. Yeah, exactly. Okay.
I had a few questions. One of them was about
what people tend to write to you about, like what
their responses have been, which I really want to know.
But the one that I think we should end this
section on is, Um, you're writing a book on cults now,
(42:10):
and specifically about the language of cults, and I think
how they brainwash us? And I think what you're sort
of implying is that, Um, it's happening to all of
us all the time. Um, what has it changed anything
about what you wrote in words loot or what are
you learning that's surprising. Yeah. Well, the first thing, um
(42:31):
is that brainwashing doesn't exist. It's a pseudo scientific concept
um and a metaphor. After all, nobody actually cuts open
the brain and scrubs it. Although although um, there is
a more literal form of brainwashing that occurs when we
sleep um, thanks to our glimphatic system. UM. But that's
(42:54):
a totally separate, very nerdy concept that has to do
more with what my parents study any ways. UM. Yeah,
So I'm studying this wide spectrum of the of the
groups that the word cult can be applied to in
contemporary culture. From the most you know, notoriously destructive groups
like Jonestown heavens Gate scientology, two groups that are a
(43:18):
little more on the fence like multi level marketing UM organizations,
two groups that are ostensibly you know, very constructive like
soul Cycle and peloton um and other fitness groups um.
And specifically, yeah, I'm looking at how these different groups
use language to do all the things that occult would
(43:39):
need to do in order to gain power and stay
in power and create a following. So you control people,
control people, you know, create solidarity and still ideology, create
that us versus them mentality. UM. Really warp followers realities. Um,
and it's it's super Are you looking at um political
(44:00):
stuff as well? Sorry, well I think demon was just
expelled from my mouth. Oh my god. Okay, well that's
probably a sign that we're way overdue for a break anyway,
So we're we will table the conversation about the cult
and the politics for your next visit here. Obviously, we
(44:21):
will be back in a moment to find out who
you have brought in for us. So we're back, Amanda,
tell us who you brought in for us. I brought
this I don't know. I don't know how many people
(44:42):
have heard of her. You might want to google her later.
My name is Michelle Obama. Um no, I'm so thrilled
you brought in Michelle. I feel like all of the
other guests like didn't even realize that they hadn't brought
her in yet. Um, it's so good, it's so good.
So Michelle Obama, I mean, what a what a total
dream of a public speak. And I pulled two different
(45:02):
clips and would love you to tell me which which
you'd like to listen to and talk about for a
little bit. One of them is this sort of when
she got on all of our consciousness, which is the
uh oh eight Democratic National Convention where she gave this
gorgeous speech that was very personal uh and also a
stunning example of public speaking. The other is from like
(45:26):
last week where she's just talking into the camera to
some high school students, and I feel like, since we're
all doing talking into camera work these days and sort
of rebranding or rethinking about what public speaking even means
for the near future, I thought that was interesting too.
Oh cool, Well, I want to hear them vote. Let's um,
for time's sake, let's do the second one, because I
(45:49):
could see you light up a little bit. Um. Obviously,
it's less in a way, you know, on purpose. It's
it's less heightened, as you said earlier, you know, But
that's part of the idea of how we try ins
late now. You know. We have our private world selves,
how we talk to our friends, how we talk to
our loved ones. We have our public persona that we're
working on or that we are in various stages of
(46:10):
discomfort with in terms of like getting on the stage
or talking into a microphone. And then we have this
weird third way, which is like what coronavirus is allowing
us the opportunity to explore is a nice way to
put it, which is, like, you know, and also for
for people like you who have really been taking advantage
of the of the opportunity to you know whatever, use
(46:31):
cameras to reach the masses. Um, by which I mean
everybody needs to go check out a Manta University on
Instagram live. But no, but truly, you know, like people
who have really harnessed like the power of the YouTube
age to connect with people are are who have explored
this and sort of found how to how to bring
themselves into looking into a weird little black dot on
(46:52):
the screen. Um. So here's how Michelle does that. You know.
We we hear the stories every day of all of
the metal coal providers and the medical workers who are
putting their lives on the line. And that's a big,
powerful way that people are sacrificing and making sure that
they're playing a part. But they're also ways big and small.
(47:14):
I mean, people are delivering food to folks who can't
get out. I mean simple things like checking on your
loved ones, kick up the phone, don't just text, make
sure the people that you love hear your voice. There's
this idea that was discussed in one of my earlier
podcasts about um thinking about how public how people help
people sort of present themselves publicly as being um, you
(47:37):
can sort of you can sort of rate them on
these metrics of strength and warmth that aren't opposites. They're
just two different sort of things that play next to
each other and and and like sort of together tell
a story about how we how we perceive people and
how much we feel like we like them or trust
them or think yore powerful. And you know, just even
in that little clip where she's like, you know, not
(47:59):
at her most like full bodied, uh you know, right,
sort of I'm thinking of like you know, the stage persona. UM,
what she says to somebody who basically is saying, I
feel powerless. How can I help? Is it makes me
think of what I my interpretation of the strength warm thing,
because I think the strength warm thing is really strong
(48:21):
and really strong and really warm. Uh No, I think
the strength warm thing is really valuable. But I also
think it's it's um, it feels really academic, and it's
sort of like, okay, great, how do I turn dial
up my strength and dial down my warm? You know?
I mean it can start to get us in our
head in a way that feels very unpermission e um.
But what I realized that I was thinking about when
(48:43):
I had to do that big talk I talked about
earlier is that in a way, we can think of
it as assured and assuring assured is about strength. I
am sure of myself to some degree. I am. I
am assured that I that I deserve to be up
here and then I have something to say of value.
And as shoring is that warmth of don't worry, it's
going to be okay. I love that. And what I
(49:05):
love about when I hit upon that that version of
it is that we can realize we all know how
to be that person to the people we love when
they need it. And I that's what I was feeling
when I was listening to her right now. I mean,
it wasn't like, as I said, it wasn't her biggest,
it wasn't her most um sort of galvanizing, But she's
(49:25):
talking directly into a lens, which is what we're all
having to learn how to do now well, being a
little vulnerable. Her voice got a little vocal fry at
the end, which is what we do when we're when
we're sort of dropping down into like this matters a
lot sometimes sometimes that's what that means. And she also
is just saying like here's some solutions and you've got this. Yeah. Yeah.
There's like an intimacy in it, and there's like a soft, mellifluous,
(49:51):
relaxed quality to the voice. I picture her wearing like
a sweater instead of like a structured blazer with a belt,
you know. Well, and that's the other thing, you know,
I'm I'm so into this idea that as we're all
living life on zoom and people are seeing our homes
or some version of our homes more than in the
(50:13):
back although we're all i think suddenly feeling all. You know,
I've I've heard a lot of discussion about the self
consciousness of people can see my house. Now, what I'm
more interested in is like what the version of us
that we bring into those meetings is, who is sitting
in our house, who's used to being comfortable in our
house and bringing that level of comfort and as you say,
(50:35):
intimacy into something that feels like a work context, and like,
can we learn anything there about sudden list this sudden
like sort of lack of a of a of a division. Yeah,
it's interesting. I think like I can just speak anecdotally.
I don't have like data on this, but I consider
myself a sort of like very casual, friendly person with
(50:57):
like not a lot of errors. I don't use a
lot of like corporate es. Um. Yes, I use a
lot of like linguisticy jargon because I'm a nerd. But
I'm just sort of like an informal person who can
turn on the formality when it's you know, necessary and appropriate.
But like all of this sort of like let's strip
away the pretense and just like get out of the
(51:20):
way within the first five minutes that I'm not wearing pants.
I mean, I am wearing leggings today. But um, like
I had a general meeting. This is a Hollywood term. Um,
I had a general with production like fancy production company
the other week, and I wore the Zoom uniform of
like a cute top with a headband and like full makeup.
(51:43):
And you know, if I had had that meeting in person,
I would have also had cute pants and heels, and
you know it would have been it would have had
that certain level of professionalism. But within the first five minutes,
these strangers and I were talking about how we were
all wearing pajah the bottoms, and they were I was
talking about how I was wearing these stripy pajama shorts
(52:04):
that I had had since two thousand nine, and they
were like, let's see them. We want to see them.
And I was like hey, I was like, you got it,
like and I just panned down and they were like,
those are cute. We all have those. I was like, yeah,
I mean in a way, like you know, everybody's talking
about the silver lining, but like the silver lining of
the pandemic in terms of the how business is done
(52:27):
is that we can all admit that we've all been
sick of the pretense for a while. Yeah. No, the
pretense is really off putting to me. And I talked
about it in my cult book about the Pretense and
bullshit of of Corporate es UM, which is something that
always really rubbed me the wrong way in corporate offices, obviously,
(52:48):
like sometimes um workplace jargon is necessary to like succinctly
communicate about a specific topic, but sometimes it really is
just like euphemistic, creepy bullshit, Like when we talk about
like wifeboard white boarding with the fun no white boarding
and UM and sunsetting and like you know, oh god,
there are just like there are countless terms that I
(53:08):
love to parody, but um, it's it's much more about
in those cases, it's much more about tribalism. Right, It's
like we're we're on the in crowd, and if you
don't understand us, there's a reason you don't understand this.
You have not been let in hundred percent. And it's
like not for sustinctness and clarity. In fact, sometimes it's
too actively obscure meanings and confuse outsiders, um and even
(53:30):
confused insiders. I don't know, it's just like bullshit to me,
So yeah, I am, you know they're I like, I
hesitate to use the word silver lining because I don't
know this just like all sucks, But I do, um,
I do appreciate the humanity that people are showing. Is
there a term that we should be using besides silver lining?
(53:50):
Because I feel the same. It's like, what a what
an extremely callous thing to say about something that's ruining
people's lives all around the world. But also like, how
do we talk about the fact that we're all like
there's this human need to find hope, and so we
find the things that are working better now than they were,
you know, we'll look for that. There's this there's this
(54:10):
amazing YouTube video that I recommend to everybody. It's this
Burnet Brown video on empathy, and it talks about how
like true empathetic statements never start with well at least
you know, like they don't, you know, like truly empathetic
statements don't try to silver line shitty situation. And you know,
(54:34):
obviously sometimes it's really necessary to look at the hopeful
um optimistic side of things if that feels appropriate. But
this is something I learned, like on the lifeline, because
sometimes I'm talking to people who do not want advice
about what's going well for them, or they don't want,
(54:56):
you know, to be cheered up if you will. They
just want the space to talk about how something is
awful and how something sucks and how something feels really hopeless,
and they want someone to like crawl down in that
hole with them instead of looking down from the top
being like, yeah, that sucks, bro, but like at least
(55:16):
you're you know, at least you don't have COVID. You know.
They want someone who's going to crawl down in that
hole with them and be like, I hear you, that's awful.
Nobody deserves that shit, you know. Um, And that is
not always the most natural impulse for me, because I
(55:37):
am like a perky person. Um. But it's that same
idea of warmth versus strength, Like you were saying, like,
there is a time to just be to just be
like someone's parent almost, and then there was a time, yeah,
to be like a blanket, but then the parenting is
(55:59):
warmth and strength. So there's a time to be like
somebody's blanket, and then there's a time to be someone's
like spanking paddle or I don't know what the what
the metaphor would be, um, speaking of um spanking paddles.
We should probably end this, but Amanda, thank you for
(56:19):
talking to us today. Oh it's really thank you. Thank
you to Amanda Montell for joining me. You can find
out more about her and get her book in my
show notes or on the website Permission to Speak pot
dot com. There's also a little bit more bonus content
on Instagram this week where you get to hear Amanda
(56:41):
telling me some like serious wisdom on how to think
about confidence, which does in fact connect with my five
year old son correcting me um. In case you're wondering,
he has all the opinions now about how English works. Shocking,
shock sucking. My child would do that. While you're over
(57:02):
there on Instagram, though, Please keep sending me d M s.
I'm loving people writing in. Tell me what's going on
with your voice? Tell me what you want to hear
more of in this podcast, including specific guests or general
categories of the type of person whose voice would really
add to the conversation. And I would be really really
(57:26):
honored to try to make that happen. And thank you
to Sophie Lichterman and the team at I Heeart Radio,
to my family and cohort and all of you. We're
recording this podcast at various locations around l a On
Land that is historic gathering place for the Tongva indigenous tribe,
and you can visit U S d A C dot
us to learn more about honoring native land. Permission to
(57:49):
Speak is a production of I Heart Radio and Double
Vision Executive produced by Katherine Burke Canton and Mark Canton.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, listen on the
i Heart Radio app, Apple pod casts or wherever you
get your favorite shows. H
Today's quote is from Margaret Sanger in nineteen fourteen. Uh.
She was a serious hero and also seriously problematic and compromised,
but a real fighter for women's rights and especially for
reproductive rights. And she put this out in UM something
(00:22):
called Woman Rebel that she created with her sister in
nineteen fourteen, and this is the manifesto called Why the
Woman Rebel question mark. Because I believe that deep down
in woman's nature lies slumbering the spirit of revolt. Because
I believe that woman is enslaved by the world machine,
(00:44):
by sex conventions, by motherhood and its present necessary child rearing,
by wage slavery, by middle class morality, by customs, laws
and superstitions. Because I believe that woman's freedom depends upon
awakening that spirit of revolt within her against these things
which enslave her. Because I believe that these things which
(01:07):
enslave her must be fought openly, fearlessly, consciously. Welcome to
permission to speak the podcast about how we talk and
how we get ourselves heard with me, samar abe Hi, everybody,
(01:34):
Welcome back UM. Last week's episode was all about exploring
our biases around African American English, and this week with
a huge acknowledgment about how intersectional this all is and
how little fits neatly into strict categories. This week's episode
(01:54):
is sort of a part two, turning the spotlight on
biases around women's races, on how aspects of our speech,
the bits that sound a little different than men generally
or seem to are what people love to point out.
I'm talking about how much we say like or speak
(02:16):
in vocal fry. Vocal fry, for example, which, by the way,
quick Google search will tell you is definitely what is
holding you back from anybody taking you seriously. So our
guide through this episode. My guest is Amanda Montell. She
is a reporter and an essayist and the author of
(02:36):
word Slot, a feminist guide to taking Back the English Language,
which came out in paperback a few weeks ago, and
I wanted to have her on because that book is,
i mean, one of my all time favorite reads. Amanda
studied linguistics and undergrad and I think very much like
me sees in the study of how we talk a
(03:00):
window into so much of all of our actual real
life drama, the ways that we show up in the world,
the ways that we are treated, the ways we treat
others the ways we communicate our innermost thoughts for the
you know, chance at being truly understood, and also you
know what gets in the way of that. And I
do have to warn you that you will hear us
(03:20):
a geek out like so hardcore in this conversation and
go on some ridiculous tangents. But you may also feel
what I felt reading her book, which is like a
really deep sense of satisfaction and validation that how we sound,
all of our likes and vocal fry and up speak
and filler words are markers of our gender and in
(03:44):
some cases of our generation. And we can absolutely try
on different modes if we want, because we contain multitudes,
and you know, if you want suggestions on how, then
definitely listen to our upcoming mail bag episode. But this
is the big but we could also revel in how
much how each of us speaks is English in America
(04:08):
right now where we stand, we are it. Uh So
this is Amanda. First of all, will you tell the
people about um this French thing with la coovid and
what that says about UM. I think it's a good
(04:29):
way in honestly to talking about like how much more language,
uh oppresses or empowers us than we think it does. Yeah. Absolutely.
In France there is um a legitimate grammar police and
official um coalition of grammarians called Lacademy France. Says some
people might know this. It consists of mostly white dudes
(04:50):
named Gen. That is a fact. You can look it up. Um,
there are at least fourteen Gens on the board of
the Academy, Front says somehow, but anyway, they determine the countries.
It's true, they determine the country's official grammatical rules and
UM that includes the gendered noun classification of new words.
So you know, French is a grammatically gendered language where
(05:11):
every noun receives a masculine and feminine suffix. There are
dozens and dozens and dozens of languages like these throughout
the world. But it was just announced that Lady Frances
has determined that from now on, COVID nineteen is officially
a feminine noun law COVID nineteen. And there was some
which it wasn't which people were like it was generally
(05:32):
making it just generally masculine, and so they had to
kind of come in from above. You're correct, So people
were saying luke COVID nineteen with this masculine article UM,
and the French grammar police stepped in and they said, no, no,
these not these nuts. But they didn't say it in
English because moment like, we'll just we'll just say a
(06:00):
bunch of words that rhyme with French six yeah exactly.
D I don't know, I'll like say the four French
things I know how to say. Um. But this could
(06:21):
get really derailed really fast anyways. Um so they I mean,
their reasoning was that the word malady meaning illness is feminine,
and so we're gonna go with that, even though virus
is masculine. It it didn't make a whole lot of sense.
But um, you know this, this concept of a disease
(06:44):
being marked feminine, it might not sound um like, it
has a whole lot to do with human gender. You know,
every nound gets a gender assignment in France table eyeball,
they all do. But UM linguists have found that there's
um a quote unquot leakage that occurs between um, between
grammatical gender and how we perceive human gender. And this
(07:08):
shows up in in so many ways. One of the
ways is UM how we perceive so many esteemed professions.
And this is even true in English, but in a
grammatically gendered language like French, it's even more literal. Um. So,
so many esteemed professions in the French language are masculine
gender like professor and doctor um. But you know so
(07:29):
called girl jobs um, like secretaries and babysitters are marked feminine.
So when you know, law coronavirus was deemed indeed to
be feminine, it sort of reminded me of how in English,
a language that does not have any grammatical gender except
for our third singular pronouns he and she, we so
(07:53):
often refer to dangerous, complicated things with that pronouns she.
So countries, oceans, natural disasters, cars, ships, um. They these
are by no coincidence, you know, perilous, hazardous intrusions that
men have a long history of needing to, you know,
(08:14):
conquest and dominate and cure. You know, for the longest time, storms, um,
hurricanes were only named after women. And you know, thanks
to the second wave feminist movement, the like National Weather
Service or I forget who actually determined that UM came around, yeah,
and decided they were going to alternate between male and
(08:35):
female names. But um, there's actually there was this amazing
study by the way, that makes it feel like that's
the only place where we have gender parody now in hurricanes.
Oh yeah, that's great, that's great with hurricanes. Yeah, but
there was this, um, there was a study that a
bunch of linguists conducted in two thousand eleven. They published
this study in the General of Popular Culture that was
(08:55):
analyzing sexist souvenir t shirts that were sold in the
wake of Hurricane Katrina, and slogans included Katrina that bitch,
I got blown on piste on or I got blown on,
I got blown piste on and fucked by Katrina. What
a horror. Katrina can blow me. She won't keep me
away from Marty Grat two thousand six. So, like, that's
(09:17):
a very clear example of how, you know, and a
sensibly non human related piece of grammatical gender can really
inform how you're perceiving that entity. Right, So we don't
have this grammatical gender where, um, you know, there's say
and oh suffix on the end of words like surgeon
or doctor or professor or writer or actor. But you know,
(09:40):
these words are tacitly codd male, and we can hear
that when we um, when we hear things like female
scientist or woman doctor or lady doctor. Um, those things
really girl boss. Yes, I have a whole diet tribe
on girl Boss, but these things really yeah, you know,
ceo boss, entrepreneur, These these words are are tacitly coded
(10:02):
male in our culture. Um. And when we have to,
you know, modify them with an actively feminine modifier or
prefix or suffix or make it cute, see with some
feminine modifier, that really illuminates that sexist notion. So yes,
So so this is very broadly the ways that we
aren't necessarily thinking about how the language we use in
(10:23):
forms the way we think. There's also the other part
of it, which is the language we use coming out
of our mouth and how that affects how people perceive us,
which is something I'm talking about all the time. And
obviously as a dialect coach, Um, you know, my foundational
work in this was people coming to me and saying,
I literally need to change the way I'm perceived. Some
people think that in a subconscious way, but when they're
(10:44):
coming to a dialect coach, it's like gotten really conscious.
And there's this amazing quote here that you had um
in your book right at the beginning, where you said,
every part of our speech our words are intonation are
sentence structures, is sending invisible signals telling other people who
we are and how to treat us. Bulls. Same but true.
(11:07):
I mean I underlined it like that, not because I'm like,
how dare you? But because I'm like, well, isn't that
the fucking truth? Yeah? So linguists who study gender, which,
by the way, I feel like you have found all
of them and you have spoken to all of them.
So thank you for that. Um, it's it's like it's
actually relatively new. I mean, it's like our lifetimes and
(11:28):
you have this quote. One of the most exciting concepts
that this new crop of research shows is that women
possess a secret, badass arsenal of linguistic qualities that are
profoundly misunderstood and deeply needed in the world right now.
So can we talk about some of them? I want
to talk about Um, oh, here's one gossip? Sure. Yeah.
(11:51):
So gossip obviously has this incredibly negative connotation. Um. People
think that gossip is idle and petty and something that
only women do, whereas men's talk is banter, which is
more sophisticated and never stoops to discussing people who aren't
(12:12):
in the room. UM. And linguists have found that that's
I mean, you don't even need to be a linguist
to understand that that's profoundly untrue. UM. But there's there's
plenty of empirical data to support the fact that gossip
is really a serviceable and goal driven practice. UM. And
so there's this one linguist named Debra Cameron, who I
(12:34):
referenced a lot in the book, who's explained that when
you analyze it closely, gossip serves these three main purposes. UM.
And the first is to circulate personal information in order
to keep members of a social group in the know. UM.
The next is to bond with one another by establishing
the gossipers as an in group. And then the third
is to affirm the group's commitment to certain values or norms. UM.
(12:57):
And this is absolutely not a woman only pursued. It's
just that, UM. You know, the word gossip has been
deemed this sort of female word. That third part that
you described is so interesting. I don't remember exactly you
said reaffirming the social mora is but the idea of
like we don't we gossip when somebody breaks what seemed
(13:20):
to be kind of uh, you know, socially agreed upon
rules of politeness and civility. And that's interesting. It's not
always judging it, but it is like, whoa are you
allowed to break that rule? Can I break that rule?
If that person broke that rule? I mean it's like
the constant negotiation of like patriarchy, right absolutely, And you know,
obviously gossip is, in the eyes of the beholder, the
(13:42):
most the most damaging form of gossip, uh, in recent
history that I can think of, as obviously Trump's locker
room banter. I mean, what is gossip if not that
that was one, you know, talking about a person behind
their back. By the way, if only that was damaging
I know, right, like nobody cared, nobody cared. There was
(14:03):
two seconds there. Um, so okay, So another one this
is actually related. I want to talk about hedging. I
want to talk about jam sessions. The idea of a
conversation being a jam session is so inspiring. I know,
I I love that. I love that term. Um. It's
it's one that this linguist named Jennifer Coates came up
with to describe UM, the conversational style that exists in
(14:25):
in groups of of only women. And so there's this
chapter in my book called girl You're Right? How Women? No, wait,
what is the name of this chapter? I like, I
never get to talk about this chapter. No one ever
asks me about it UM for some reason. UM people always, oh,
it's called girl You're Right? How women talk to each
other when dudes aren't around UM. And so it sort
(14:47):
of explores some of the some of the more stigmatized
UM forms of the way that women speak UM when
they're in the company of selectively other women. But yeah,
one of the coolest observations that this linguists named Jennifer
Coates made was that she likened women's really distinct turn
taking structure of their conversations to a musical jam session UM.
(15:10):
And she said that, you know, the defining characteristic of
a jam session is that the conversational floor is potentially
open to all participants simultaneously. And you know, in in
these conversations, you might hear overlapping talk or UM speakers
repeating one another or rephrasing one another's words, and everyone
is really working together to construct meaning. And so this
(15:32):
like one at a time speaker rule, UM, which is
what we see in a lot of conversations among only men.
That rule doesn't apply because, you know, generally speaking, and
this is a generalization, when women engage in conversation, the
goal is to sort of construct solidarity and build a
conversation together. And so, you know, if you want to
(15:53):
picture it visually, the conversational floor is more horizontal. But
men view the conversational floor as more as as more
of an arena for individual achievement, and so it takes
more of a vertical structure. UM. And so yeah, when
when women engage in this jam session and they're interrupting
each other and overlapping and building on each other's sentiments,
(16:15):
this UM, this simultaneous speech or or interruption, it doesn't
threatened comprehension. You know, it's not seen as like a
rude interruption. It it actually permits a more multilayered development
of topics. UM. And this jam session structure is something
that you rarely find in exchanges of men. You know, you're, you're,
you're so rarely going to find a group of you know,
(16:37):
at least straight white men UM sitting around being like
oh yeah, oh, my god, yes with this with these
like active listening, to use um, minimal responses and tag
questions and things like that. And these are stigmatized forms
that are seen as rude, did see, frivolous, insecure, etcetera.
And this is where the word hedging comes into. This
idea of hedging as like adding in the word like
(16:59):
I've just one ring instead of I'm wondering. And you know,
some some versions of like although we're going to talk
about other versions of like, but the idea that these
things that that are coded as female are actually because
they helped build conversations, right right, So softening hedges um,
which are just absolutely dragged in popular media, and you
know trainers in the workplace who come in and teach
(17:21):
women how to speak professionally, Um, they're just like absolutely lambasted.
But these are terms like you know, just actually, I
mean well, etcetera, that are perceived as signs of uncertainty.
And some have argued that women have been conditioned to
use these softening hedges because just as we've been trained
to express uncertainty of our physical attractiveness, we've been taught
(17:44):
to express uncertainty of the conviction of our statements, and
so we've peppered our speech with just you knows and
wells in order to to soften them. And so then
we get this advice that we need to cut the
just you knows and other hedges in order to sound
more authoritative and to accommodate to um, this male standard.
But actually, linguists, and thank goodness for them, UM, have
(18:05):
you know, looked at at hedges in an empirical way
and found that they're not so simple and they don't
all serve the same purpose um, And they usually don't
communicate insecurity at all. In fact, what they what they
do is they form trust and empathy and conversation and
they really account for the face needs of everyone in
a conversation. And you know, women really need the interpersonal
(18:30):
tools of hedges more often than men do because we
so often delve into sensitive territory during our conversations. In
that same bit where Jennifer Coltsa is talking, she's she
specifically says that you know, there have been enough studies
that that she can say pretty decisively. Men do not
talk about sensitive subjects as frequently as we do. They
(18:51):
don't need that they avoid them rather than figuring out
ways that we have figured out over you know, six
thousand years of paid triarchal rule, to get into the
real stuff, to bond with people when we need to
bond with them, and to do it gently enough that,
as you say, people can save face so that bonds
can actually happen, and there's not like ripping people further apart,
(19:11):
but rather bringing them closer. Yeah, And what's sad is that, like,
there was this there was this book um published a
few years ago called Deep Secrets by um what's her name?
I think it's Neobi Way, and it explored the friendships
of young straight men. And what was kind of sad
was that, like she followed this group of boys through
adolescens and found that when they were little boys, friendships
(19:34):
with other boys were like just as intimate, just as
emotional as friendships between girls. But it wasn't until those
norms of masculinity sank in that the boys you know,
ceased to confide in one another, express their vulnerable feelings.
This you know, no homo creed became entrenched, and so
then you know, they felt they started to feel like
they couldn't rely on their bros for emotional support. They
(19:59):
couldn't engage in those jam sessions, it would be seen
as gay. And so you know, from then on, women
became the carriers of their emotional burdens um and only
in private. Yeah, there's a Peggy Ornstein book that just
came out about like called Boys and Sex that where
she like befriends them and sees that hardcore over over
a long period of time. The other thing I want
(20:19):
to throw out and then we totally have to take
a break is um. I was super influenced by this
book called Joining the Resistance. Everybody Joining the Resistance Carol Gilligan.
She's a linguist and also psychologist, and she talks all
about how we've all been trained that women. Most important
thing for women is relationships, most important thing for men
is self. And so in a way, we have to
(20:40):
not listen to ourselves in order to have relationships, and
boys have to not listen to relationship, not not prioritize
relationships because they have to be all about their individualism.
It is legit and so deep. And I'm raising a
little boy and I'm like, Okay, we're gonna take a
quick break and we're gonna be right back. Cool. Cool,
(21:06):
We're back with the vanda montell. Okay, like anyone who's
been listening to this conversation will surely have heard a
few of them by now. These ideas, this hedging over
using the word like these are so maligned, and it
is so clearly because of who not what right that's
completely correct. And that's something that I that I try
(21:27):
to get across as much as possible, is that our
judgments of people's speech, not only women, but all marginalized
groups um have so little to do with the language
itself and very much to do with our preconceived notions
of that population. And so you know, we perceive, for example,
African American vernacular English as quote unquote poor grammar, when
(21:48):
really like that is an incredibly legitimate dialect that you
will learn in linguistics one oh one. And there are
grammatical constructions in African American vernacular English that are so
much cooler than anything we have in quote unquote standard English.
That's not something to look down upon, it's something to
celebrate and aspire to. You know, so much of the
(22:09):
way that women speak, folks of color speak, really any
marginalized demographic speaks, is a product of It's really a
sign of their ingenuity but also a product of their oppression. UM.
And it's those two things working together to produce a
new linguistic form UM. And I try to, you know,
when I hear language that I don't recognize or I
(22:29):
don't understand, you know, because of my linguistics background, I
try my best, and I have this instinct already, but
I try to approach it with a sense of curiosity
and enthusiasm and adaptability, like what is this you know,
what what does this language mean? Why is it being used?
There's a really strong pull in UH, in linguistic circles
(22:50):
to be descriptivist instead of prescriptivest and that really means
that we're observing and we're interested. It does not mean
that we're saying there's any should And you know, obviously
what we're all pushing against UH is the is these
shouods that you know, whether the word is used or not,
the implication that there's a right way, and then there's
this um cute see or underminey other alternative thing we're doing.
(23:12):
It needs to get you know, beaten out of us. Yeah,
when I explain what a linguist is to people, because
a lot of people don't know, and I didn't even
know until I got to college. Um, because people think like, oh,
are you a grammarian, are you a speech pathologist? Are
you a translator? How many languages? How many languages? Yeah,
And I'm like, well, you know, it just so happens
(23:32):
that I speak foreign language. Um. But and that will
often be the case because linguists have this thing where
they love language. Um. But it's not necessarily relevant to
the work that linguists do. And obviously there are so
many different sub fields of linguistics syntax, semantic sponetics, spinology, um,
cycle linguistics, computational linguistics, and then of course socio linguistics.
(23:53):
But I like to tell people that linguistics is the
science of language, and I'm not interested in how people
should talk. I'm interested in how they do talk, and
I'm fascinated by it and delighted by it. Um. And
so you know, that's a that's just like a much
more fun way to approach it, because a lot of
people have the impulse to be kind of like a
pedantic curmudgeon when it comes to language change. Well, and
(24:14):
also to get back to what we were talking about,
when you're when you're curious and interested in like a scientist,
you know, sort of following the story to figure out
what's truth. The story emerges, and the story we're talking
about here is like eons of oppression and what it's done.
And I have this amazing quote ready here from page
one of your book. You said, the ways in which
(24:36):
women and many other socially oppressed folks empower themselves with
language are all rather connected. There exists a long history
of marginalized groups innovating linguistically to build themselves up, and
they're clearly very good at it because the rest of
the world invariably ends up talking just like them. That's right.
Half a generation later. Yeah, So, time and time again,
(24:57):
linguists have found that women are our culture as linguistic innovators.
Um And. There are a lot of theories as to
why that is, but my favorite is that women use
language as a form of social power in a culture
that doesn't give them a lot of other ways to
do that. Um and I have some specific examples of
how that works. But I can talk about like if
(25:18):
you want, because it's one of my my favorite things
to talk about, So, like, can we just talk about Hello?
It really is I mean. Um, that's by the way,
Amanda and I have never actually met before, and I mean, granted,
I don't know if this counts as meeting for the internet,
(25:38):
but like I'm like, hi, yeah, like, but I feel
like we have because our personalities are strong and they
come through even over Instagram. I think he yes, b
I also think that I just saw your MirOS Briggs,
and I think we might be the same. Yeah. Um,
(26:00):
which might be why I think we both kind of
carry the mantle of like the person who wants to
like turn some of this stuff that can be accidentally
hidden away in academia into something that's that's available for
public consumption and that's fun and that's young, and that's us.
I'm a populist bitch, Like I'm not getting a PhD. Yep. Yeah.
(26:21):
When I was like interviewing linguists for my book, some
of them were so kind and so generous with their
time and really supportive of what I was trying to do,
and some were offended, like who are you? I question
your background, I question your motives. Um, So academic academia
can be really um crotchety. Yeah. Well, and the whole
(26:47):
idea that like it's it's suspect that you'd want to
make their work public. I mean I also I I
coached uh years ago at this place called the Alan
Alda Center for Communicating Science with scientists helping them, you know,
talk about their work with passions that they could actually
get funded or actually like inspire the next fucking generation.
And they had some resistance, some of them because they
(27:09):
have been it's been so beaten into them that just
to tell any personal stories, to bring any emotion, even
if the emotion is passion not like sadness, into the room,
is to be disqualified as a scientist. So there's some
like cultural stuff going on within the subculture of academia
that is probably helping no one. Yeah, so my parents
(27:29):
are research scientists. I come from like a long line
of PhD s. My grandparents. My dad is an astrophysicist.
So see, yeah, my parents or my grand my grandparents
were back to theologists. My mom is a cancer cell biologist,
my dad is a neuroscientist. Um, and they've done things
at the alan Alda Center. My parents are are well,
they're in academia, but they're also sort of populist. And
(27:52):
my mom actually was trying to get her own book.
Deal my mom wanted to write word sleat but for
like embryology on um but like no, but she's gonna
she's gonna publish it with an academic press because like
popular presses were like what no, so, but tell me
(28:14):
about like I got way off track? Um okay, so
like like is obviously one of the most criticized lampooned
speech qualities in the English language today. You know, when
people make fun of teenage girls, they say things like
and then I was like and she was like and
you were like and like like like like like um,
(28:36):
and people think that, you know, all likes are the
same and they're just a blatant sign of dizziness and
that if you don't know what you're saying, and if
you're a ding dong in a turkey, then you're going
to use like all over the place. Um. But despite
the words detractors, you know, like is actually extremely useful
and versatile, and linguists have found that there are six
(28:59):
completely stinct forms of the word like. They're all hominems,
just like you know, the noun watch meaning the time
piece on your wrist, and the verb watch meaning what
you do with your eyes when you turn on the
TV or hominems. And you know, the two oldest forms
of like in the English language are the verb like
and the adjective like, as in the sentence, um, oh,
(29:22):
I like your backdrop. It looks like something out of
the jungle. I'm complimenting the beautiful backdrop I'm seeing right now.
But um, those you know, those two forms are that
they sound exactly the same, so most people don't even
notice that they're these separate words with separate histories. Um.
And they they're both so old that, you know, we've
(29:44):
had a lot of time to get used to them.
They and men use them too, Yeah, and men use
them to like nobody nobody complains, But yeah, they come
from these two incredibly old old English words. One is
leak and one is lysian. Um. My audiobook engineer taught
me how to pronounce those two old English words. UM.
(30:04):
So I'm I'm grateful to her for that, Thanks Cassandra
shout out. But um, they're these four new likes that
have developed much more recently than that. And these are
all separate words with distinct distinct uses to um. And
only two of these likes are used more frequently by
women and only one of them was pioneered by young
southern California females in the nineteen nineties, which is where
(30:25):
we get that value are all stereotype from. And that
one is my favorite one, and it's the quotative like,
which you would hear in a sentence and I was like,
oh my god, what are you saying? And she was like,
I know, right, And this like is super useful because
it allows you to tell a story, to like relay
something that happened without having to quote the interaction for batim.
(30:46):
So if I were to say, um, oh yeah, and
then my boss was like, I need those papers by Monday,
and I was like, are you fucking kidding me? I'm
not saying what actually happened, but instead saying what I
you know, wish it happened, or or being the spirit
of the interaction. And this incredibly useful quotative like has
continued to explode in popularity since the nineties. So then
(31:10):
there are two more forms of the word like, and
these are hedges. One is a discourse particle and one
is a discourse marker, and they are very similar. They're
used to you know, connect or organized, or express a
certain attitude with um with your speech. And so the
discourse particle you would hear in something like, oh, that
backdrop is like my favorite thing I've seen all day,
(31:31):
But the discourse marker would be like that backdrop, it's
really cute. UM. And the discourse particle is used. The
discourse particle is used just as much by men and women.
It's used in equal measure, and so it isn't ridiculed
as much. It's really only the forms of the word
like that are used a little bit more by women
(31:54):
that receive such heavy criticism. UM. And then the last
form of the of like is the approximate adverb, which
has been around since, which has replaced the approximate adverb
about in casual conversation. And so nobody ever complains, and
you would hear that in um, I uh, I bought
this sweatshirt like two years ago. UM. And so because
(32:18):
it's been around for a while and men and women
both use it, um, nobody has any problem with it.
And so objectively that we can see that using one, two,
or all of these likes in the same sentence UM
isn't inherently a bad thing. And so I like to
tell people, you know, if you get criticized for saying
the word like too much. You can ask them, oh, really,
(32:38):
which kind um? Because a lot of the time, you know,
people ridicule like so heavily um, just because they don't
realize that there are these six different forms um, and
they blame women for all of them. And if we
were using any words six different ways, um, we're bound
to hear it more often. That's an interesting point. Yes,
(32:59):
a hundred or sent. There was this really funny quote
from The New Yorker a few years ago, UM where
someone said, if men had pioneered all of these different likes,
we would be reading the like New Yorker. But you know, well,
you know, but like you know, um, Yes, I very
memorably because it's like, really, I had it to take
(33:21):
a moment with this. I gave a talk which I've
talked about on this podcast before for people before, and
it was it was very well received, and I had
some friends in the audience who happened to be walking
out at the end behind two older women who said,
quote unquote, do you think she was using all those
likes on purpose? Well? And so I I really wrestled
(33:44):
with when I heard that I was part of me
got instantly ashamed, which is you know, the total like
conditioning that we should not be saying like so much
without questioning why we shouldn't be saying like so much.
Uh so that I absolutely got hit with that, and
then of course afterwards, like moments afterwards, the second hit
that I got was like, yeah, yeah, I'm an authority
(34:06):
figure who can stand on a stage and have those
two women think I gave a great talk and have
them wonder if I was using like on purpose because
it is a marker of my particular generation and identity. Right,
Oh yeah, I want some Working as a beauty editor,
which was my old career, um I, we had this
(34:26):
duo of media trainers come in to sort of evaluate
and give the editors pointers on how we should conduct
ourselves on camera where we to do like a bunch
of Facebook lives or whatever the funk back when Facebook
Live was like a major thing. Um And I remember this, Uh,
this colleague and I she was also in her early twenties,
(34:46):
were assigned to just like sit down and engage in
a spontaneous conversation and we were going to be judged
on our you know, how we seemed and how we
came across and I remember the media trainer just like
laid into me for saying like too much. You know,
she was telling me about how inauthoritative it made me
(35:07):
sound in blah blah blah. Little did she know you
would literally become the authority on life by the Well,
the funny thing was that, like, I was working on
my words let book proposal at the time, and so
I was just sort of, you know, chuckling to myself.
But then the crazy part was that she said at
the end, she was like, I mean, all that said,
he came across as very likable, extremely likable, like I
(35:28):
want to be your best friend. Like, and I was like, secretly,
I know that it was very much my authenticity of
speech and my relaxed nature, um that allowed me to
come across as so likable. And in fact, linguists have
found that speech lacking in likes and you knows, can
cause someone to come across as too robotic or stiff
(35:51):
or unfriendly and um, so I just thought that that
was funny, but it but it reminded me that, like,
you know, well, it reminded me of a couple of things.
First of all, so much of the criticism and this
is you know, relevant to your story too. That women
get of their speech comes from other women who are
older and had to accommodate to these really problematic linguistic standards,
(36:15):
and so they're then perpetuating those standards and figuring, you know, well,
if I had to go through this struggle and if
I had to accommodate, then that's part for the course
and you should have to too. But you know, hopefully
when the younger generation becomes the boss, and you know
I have and I have assistance or not multiple assistance.
I have one assistant now, um, and so I would
(36:36):
never judge her for for using the word like I would.
I would never perpetuate those same um problematic standards. And
I try to encourage other women that when they become
the boss one day to um resist doing that and
to create a more empowering environment for women and to
not create that environment. So this is the question, right.
I want to bring it back to a few like
(36:58):
really attempt at solid pieces of advice here, and one
of them, one of them is around this idea of
what does it mean to work on having a powerful
voice or coming across as authoritative while also not denying
you know, the ways that we talk because they're they're
a part of our natural voice. And it's a challenge.
I mean, you know, for some people it is about um.
(37:21):
I mean, I've certainly been in a position of telling
people that the way that they are vocal frying at
the end of their thought, where like they'll say something
that matters, like it sounds like it matters, but then
they'll say like, but I don't know, right, or something
that has gives the quality of but I don't know
is extremely useful and totally valid in those interaction jam sessions.
(37:42):
And but if they're giving a talk, it's an interesting
opportunity to see what does it sound like in my
voice to get to the end of the thought, Like
I believe myself all the way to the end, even
if it feels weird. And see, does that person also
live in me if she doesn't find right? But what
if she does? And we've just been also socialized into
this stuff that works in one context but less than another. Right,
(38:03):
So I think context is incredibly important with language, right,
Like context is everything obviously, you know, and that and
that can apply to things like you know, the use
of vocal fry and up speak and like, um, whether
you're using those in natural, everyday conversation or using them
in a presentation. It's also true when we're talking about
gendered insults like bitch and slut. You know, if I
(38:26):
am talking to my friend, I'm like, yes, bitch, you
bad bitch, I'm so glad you had a slutty night.
The context is so different than if someone is using
the words bitch and slut as as terms of abuse.
So context is of primary importance when we're talking about language. Um.
But yeah, I think like obviously, in certain by the way,
(38:48):
that was the discourse particle like um that I just used.
Always like to point that out. Um, But yeah, I
think there are there's a time and place for our
most natural speech, and there's a time and place for
a slightly more heightened and formalized version. Obviously, when I'm
writing my book, I'm not going to put just and
you knows and wells everywhere. Um. And there are people
(39:11):
who do write like that, Like there are people who
do hedge in their writing to create a certain casual effect.
But I'm trying to write an authoritative linguistics book that's
fun and accessible. But I would actually argue that you did,
that you that you that you really honed in on
a third way, like there is the informal and there's
the formal, but then there's also conversational writing, which is
(39:34):
different than than unconversational writing that would sound bad out loud,
you know. And I think you and I are probably
both playing in that way of like how do we
sound like a human on the page, but also yes,
take out the things that we don't need because we're
not actually asking the other person to they understand what
we're saying. You know, as I've said on this podcast,
my actual real intention is how to help people use
their voice to get what they want. It's not how
(39:56):
to use your voice regardless of what you want, yeah,
and in regardless of what on text, right, And I
think something that we both are super jazzed about is
that language exists in order to do something. Yeah, exactly exactly.
And you know we were talking about code switching before,
and that's a that's a queue that we can take from,
you know, speakers of African American Vernacular English who also
(40:18):
speak Standard American English. It's like we need to be
able to drop into different registers according to the situation
at hand. UM, and I certainly have different registers. You know,
I have my like my boyfriend will overhear me talk
in my um Amanda University Instagram register and then talk
in my when I'm interviewing a source for my book,
(40:39):
I have a completely different register. And UM, we were
talking about how I volunteer on a crisis lifeline. I
have a totally different form of speech when when that's
the context, and then I have the you know, the
the voice that I use what I'm talking with my friends.
I have the voice that I use what I'm talking
in a public event. You know, we we need to
be able to adjust according to the situation. And that's
(41:02):
not to put any pressure on anyone to um, you know,
have to radically alter their speech because something else that
I want to communicate is like, really the most important
thing is authenticity, Like talk about something you care about.
And you know, you can listen to the spin doctors
and the vocal coaches all you want, but if your
speech sounds inauthentic and stilted, you're not going to be
(41:26):
compelling and you're not going to get across what you
need to get across. And part of what's what's the
deal with my with like my ethos around around voice coaching.
Is that where I'm what I'm trying to get for
authent you know, quote unquote authentic voices from people is
that they're talking about the things that matter to them
in a way that sounds like it matters to them.
And we've often have that sort of socialized out of us.
So having to get a little boost to be like, oh,
(41:48):
what does it feel like to actually breathe and feel
my feelings and be you know, giving myself permission to
do that so that I can actually like let my
authentic self out and not just hide. Yeah, exactly. Okay.
I had a few questions. One of them was about
what people tend to write to you about, like what
their responses have been, which I really want to know.
But the one that I think we should end this
section on is, Um, you're writing a book on cults now,
(42:10):
and specifically about the language of cults, and I think
how they brainwash us? And I think what you're sort
of implying is that, Um, it's happening to all of
us all the time. Um, what has it changed anything
about what you wrote in words loot or what are
you learning that's surprising. Yeah. Well, the first thing, um
(42:31):
is that brainwashing doesn't exist. It's a pseudo scientific concept
um and a metaphor. After all, nobody actually cuts open
the brain and scrubs it. Although although um, there is
a more literal form of brainwashing that occurs when we
sleep um, thanks to our glimphatic system. UM. But that's
(42:54):
a totally separate, very nerdy concept that has to do
more with what my parents study any ways. UM. Yeah,
So I'm studying this wide spectrum of the of the
groups that the word cult can be applied to in
contemporary culture. From the most you know, notoriously destructive groups
like Jonestown heavens Gate scientology, two groups that are a
(43:18):
little more on the fence like multi level marketing UM organizations,
two groups that are ostensibly you know, very constructive like
soul Cycle and peloton um and other fitness groups um.
And specifically, yeah, I'm looking at how these different groups
use language to do all the things that occult would
(43:39):
need to do in order to gain power and stay
in power and create a following. So you control people,
control people, you know, create solidarity and still ideology, create
that us versus them mentality. UM. Really warp followers realities. Um,
and it's it's super Are you looking at um political
(44:00):
stuff as well? Sorry, well I think demon was just
expelled from my mouth. Oh my god. Okay, well that's
probably a sign that we're way overdue for a break anyway,
So we're we will table the conversation about the cult
and the politics for your next visit here. Obviously, we
(44:21):
will be back in a moment to find out who
you have brought in for us. So we're back, Amanda,
tell us who you brought in for us. I brought
this I don't know. I don't know how many people
(44:42):
have heard of her. You might want to google her later.
My name is Michelle Obama. Um no, I'm so thrilled
you brought in Michelle. I feel like all of the
other guests like didn't even realize that they hadn't brought
her in yet. Um, it's so good, it's so good.
So Michelle Obama, I mean, what a what a total
dream of a public speak. And I pulled two different
(45:02):
clips and would love you to tell me which which
you'd like to listen to and talk about for a
little bit. One of them is this sort of when
she got on all of our consciousness, which is the
uh oh eight Democratic National Convention where she gave this
gorgeous speech that was very personal uh and also a
stunning example of public speaking. The other is from like
(45:26):
last week where she's just talking into the camera to
some high school students, and I feel like, since we're
all doing talking into camera work these days and sort
of rebranding or rethinking about what public speaking even means
for the near future, I thought that was interesting too.
Oh cool, Well, I want to hear them vote. Let's um,
for time's sake, let's do the second one, because I
(45:49):
could see you light up a little bit. Um. Obviously,
it's less in a way, you know, on purpose. It's
it's less heightened, as you said earlier, you know, But
that's part of the idea of how we try ins
late now. You know. We have our private world selves,
how we talk to our friends, how we talk to
our loved ones. We have our public persona that we're
working on or that we are in various stages of
(46:10):
discomfort with in terms of like getting on the stage
or talking into a microphone. And then we have this
weird third way, which is like what coronavirus is allowing
us the opportunity to explore is a nice way to
put it, which is, like, you know, and also for
for people like you who have really been taking advantage
of the of the opportunity to you know whatever, use
(46:31):
cameras to reach the masses. Um, by which I mean
everybody needs to go check out a Manta University on
Instagram live. But no, but truly, you know, like people
who have really harnessed like the power of the YouTube
age to connect with people are are who have explored
this and sort of found how to how to bring
themselves into looking into a weird little black dot on
(46:52):
the screen. Um. So here's how Michelle does that. You know.
We we hear the stories every day of all of
the metal coal providers and the medical workers who are
putting their lives on the line. And that's a big,
powerful way that people are sacrificing and making sure that
they're playing a part. But they're also ways big and small.
(47:14):
I mean, people are delivering food to folks who can't
get out. I mean simple things like checking on your
loved ones, kick up the phone, don't just text, make
sure the people that you love hear your voice. There's
this idea that was discussed in one of my earlier
podcasts about um thinking about how public how people help
people sort of present themselves publicly as being um, you
(47:37):
can sort of you can sort of rate them on
these metrics of strength and warmth that aren't opposites. They're
just two different sort of things that play next to
each other and and and like sort of together tell
a story about how we how we perceive people and
how much we feel like we like them or trust
them or think yore powerful. And you know, just even
in that little clip where she's like, you know, not
(47:59):
at her most like full bodied, uh you know, right,
sort of I'm thinking of like you know, the stage persona. UM,
what she says to somebody who basically is saying, I
feel powerless. How can I help? Is it makes me
think of what I my interpretation of the strength warm thing,
because I think the strength warm thing is really strong
(48:21):
and really strong and really warm. Uh No, I think
the strength warm thing is really valuable. But I also
think it's it's um, it feels really academic, and it's
sort of like, okay, great, how do I turn dial
up my strength and dial down my warm? You know?
I mean it can start to get us in our
head in a way that feels very unpermission e um.
But what I realized that I was thinking about when
(48:43):
I had to do that big talk I talked about
earlier is that in a way, we can think of
it as assured and assuring assured is about strength. I
am sure of myself to some degree. I am. I
am assured that I that I deserve to be up
here and then I have something to say of value.
And as shoring is that warmth of don't worry, it's
going to be okay. I love that. And what I
(49:05):
love about when I hit upon that that version of
it is that we can realize we all know how
to be that person to the people we love when
they need it. And I that's what I was feeling
when I was listening to her right now. I mean,
it wasn't like, as I said, it wasn't her biggest,
it wasn't her most um sort of galvanizing, But she's
(49:25):
talking directly into a lens, which is what we're all
having to learn how to do now well, being a
little vulnerable. Her voice got a little vocal fry at
the end, which is what we do when we're when
we're sort of dropping down into like this matters a
lot sometimes sometimes that's what that means. And she also
is just saying like here's some solutions and you've got this. Yeah. Yeah.
There's like an intimacy in it, and there's like a soft, mellifluous,
(49:51):
relaxed quality to the voice. I picture her wearing like
a sweater instead of like a structured blazer with a belt,
you know. Well, and that's the other thing, you know,
I'm I'm so into this idea that as we're all
living life on zoom and people are seeing our homes
or some version of our homes more than in the
(50:13):
back although we're all i think suddenly feeling all. You know,
I've I've heard a lot of discussion about the self
consciousness of people can see my house. Now, what I'm
more interested in is like what the version of us
that we bring into those meetings is, who is sitting
in our house, who's used to being comfortable in our
house and bringing that level of comfort and as you say,
(50:35):
intimacy into something that feels like a work context, and like,
can we learn anything there about sudden list this sudden
like sort of lack of a of a of a division. Yeah,
it's interesting. I think like I can just speak anecdotally.
I don't have like data on this, but I consider
myself a sort of like very casual, friendly person with
(50:57):
like not a lot of errors. I don't use a
lot of like corporate es. Um. Yes, I use a
lot of like linguisticy jargon because I'm a nerd. But
I'm just sort of like an informal person who can
turn on the formality when it's you know, necessary and appropriate.
But like all of this sort of like let's strip
away the pretense and just like get out of the
(51:20):
way within the first five minutes that I'm not wearing pants.
I mean, I am wearing leggings today. But um, like
I had a general meeting. This is a Hollywood term. Um,
I had a general with production like fancy production company
the other week, and I wore the Zoom uniform of
like a cute top with a headband and like full makeup.
(51:43):
And you know, if I had had that meeting in person,
I would have also had cute pants and heels, and
you know it would have been it would have had
that certain level of professionalism. But within the first five minutes,
these strangers and I were talking about how we were
all wearing pajah the bottoms, and they were I was
talking about how I was wearing these stripy pajama shorts
(52:04):
that I had had since two thousand nine, and they
were like, let's see them. We want to see them.
And I was like hey, I was like, you got it,
like and I just panned down and they were like,
those are cute. We all have those. I was like, yeah,
I mean in a way, like you know, everybody's talking
about the silver lining, but like the silver lining of
the pandemic in terms of the how business is done
(52:27):
is that we can all admit that we've all been
sick of the pretense for a while. Yeah. No, the
pretense is really off putting to me. And I talked
about it in my cult book about the Pretense and
bullshit of of Corporate es UM, which is something that
always really rubbed me the wrong way in corporate offices, obviously,
(52:48):
like sometimes um workplace jargon is necessary to like succinctly
communicate about a specific topic, but sometimes it really is
just like euphemistic, creepy bullshit, Like when we talk about
like wifeboard white boarding with the fun no white boarding
and UM and sunsetting and like you know, oh god,
there are just like there are countless terms that I
(53:08):
love to parody, but um, it's it's much more about
in those cases, it's much more about tribalism. Right, It's
like we're we're on the in crowd, and if you
don't understand us, there's a reason you don't understand this.
You have not been let in hundred percent. And it's
like not for sustinctness and clarity. In fact, sometimes it's
too actively obscure meanings and confuse outsiders, um and even
(53:30):
confused insiders. I don't know, it's just like bullshit to me,
So yeah, I am, you know they're I like, I
hesitate to use the word silver lining because I don't
know this just like all sucks, But I do, um,
I do appreciate the humanity that people are showing. Is
there a term that we should be using besides silver lining?
(53:50):
Because I feel the same. It's like, what a what
an extremely callous thing to say about something that's ruining
people's lives all around the world. But also like, how
do we talk about the fact that we're all like
there's this human need to find hope, and so we
find the things that are working better now than they were,
you know, we'll look for that. There's this there's this
(54:10):
amazing YouTube video that I recommend to everybody. It's this
Burnet Brown video on empathy, and it talks about how
like true empathetic statements never start with well at least
you know, like they don't, you know, like truly empathetic
statements don't try to silver line shitty situation. And you know,
(54:34):
obviously sometimes it's really necessary to look at the hopeful
um optimistic side of things if that feels appropriate. But
this is something I learned, like on the lifeline, because
sometimes I'm talking to people who do not want advice
about what's going well for them, or they don't want,
(54:56):
you know, to be cheered up if you will. They
just want the space to talk about how something is
awful and how something sucks and how something feels really hopeless,
and they want someone to like crawl down in that
hole with them instead of looking down from the top
being like, yeah, that sucks, bro, but like at least
(55:16):
you're you know, at least you don't have COVID. You know.
They want someone who's going to crawl down in that
hole with them and be like, I hear you, that's awful.
Nobody deserves that shit, you know. Um, And that is
not always the most natural impulse for me, because I
(55:37):
am like a perky person. Um. But it's that same
idea of warmth versus strength, Like you were saying, like,
there is a time to just be to just be
like someone's parent almost, and then there was a time, yeah,
to be like a blanket, but then the parenting is
(55:59):
warmth and strength. So there's a time to be like
somebody's blanket, and then there's a time to be someone's
like spanking paddle or I don't know what the what
the metaphor would be, um, speaking of um spanking paddles.
We should probably end this, but Amanda, thank you for
(56:19):
talking to us today. Oh it's really thank you. Thank
you to Amanda Montell for joining me. You can find
out more about her and get her book in my
show notes or on the website Permission to Speak pot
dot com. There's also a little bit more bonus content
on Instagram this week where you get to hear Amanda
(56:41):
telling me some like serious wisdom on how to think
about confidence, which does in fact connect with my five
year old son correcting me um. In case you're wondering,
he has all the opinions now about how English works. Shocking,
shock sucking. My child would do that. While you're over
(57:02):
there on Instagram, though, Please keep sending me d M s.
I'm loving people writing in. Tell me what's going on
with your voice? Tell me what you want to hear
more of in this podcast, including specific guests or general
categories of the type of person whose voice would really
add to the conversation. And I would be really really
(57:26):
honored to try to make that happen. And thank you
to Sophie Lichterman and the team at I Heeart Radio,
to my family and cohort and all of you. We're
recording this podcast at various locations around l a On
Land that is historic gathering place for the Tongva indigenous tribe,
and you can visit U S d A C dot
us to learn more about honoring native land. Permission to
(57:49):
Speak is a production of I Heart Radio and Double
Vision Executive produced by Katherine Burke Canton and Mark Canton.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, listen on the
i Heart Radio app, Apple pod casts or wherever you
get your favorite shows. H
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