Feminism and the English Language with Wordslut

Amanda Montell, author of 'Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language', stops by to discuss reclaiming gendered insults, cursing, women's linguistic innovation, sexism in our language and owning your own voice.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stephan
Ever told you protection of I Heart Radio. Today, we
are very excited to be joined by Amanda Montell, who
is a writer and a linguist, an author of the

(00:27):
book Words Splut, a Feminist Guide to taking Back the
English Language. Thank you so much for being with us, Amanda, Oh,
thank you so much for having me. I I'm often
told that I come with a wealth of information that
people's mom's never told them, So I thought this would
be a perfect fit. I'm thrilled to be here. I mean,
to be fair. In your book, you do talk to

(00:48):
moms about their outdated language, so that's kind of like
even better, you tell moms what they don't know. Yeah, yeah,
it's true. I um. I found that moms really enjoy
words slut. I think the phrase word slut is you know,
it's scandalous, but it's not too scandalous for a mom.
You know, it's a juxtaposition of a sort of like

(01:11):
nerdy word, which is word, and then an agy word
which is slut. But you put them together and it's
sort of the crown nut of of an expletive that
mom seem to be okay, with which is good because really,
this is a book about feminist socio linguistics that people
of of all of all genders and all ages, especially
those in their middle age, probably need. So uh, first

(01:33):
of all, I'll give you a point for just just
saying crown nut in any kind of analogy. So good job.
Oh well, anyone, anyone who knows who knows that I
am a portmanteau slut portmanteau, portmanteau being a hybrid of
of two different words to create a new one, like brunch, frenemy, angry, affluenza,

(01:54):
man splain. There are a great many portmanteau is that
the feminist movement has come up with in order to
name previously unspoken experiences like man splain her story, frat
trie archy is a fun one, um, so that's one
from Oh yeah. Frat triarchy is what some social scientists
have used to describe the setup of our contemporary culture,

(02:16):
which is run less by the fathers and more by
networks of the brothers. So you know, uh, an example
would be you know, Donald Trump and his bus bros.
And that access Hollywood recording would be a perfect example
of frat triarchy. You know, bros engaging in locker room
banter in order to oppressed women. We're really getting into

(02:36):
this quickly. All I said, all I said was grownut
and here we are. Look. Yeah, yeah, anyway, that is
all to say that I love a portmanteau even more
than a pun. Then we have a battle. Now she
loves she's a queen of puns. Yes, I'm a I'm

(02:59):
a big language nerd listeners of this show. No, so
I'm very very excited to have this conversation. Um, I
love the title, and congrats on writing a book. Yes,
I know that's no easy thing. So oh that that's
that's very kind of you. Yeah, that was that was
the dream all along, you know. And um the fact

(03:20):
that I got to marry my two loves, that being
linguistics the science of language, and creative writing, the art
of it. Um, that was just you know, that was
the cherry on top, because my dream had always been
to write nonfiction. Um, and I I never could have
predicted that this sort of um useless nerdy undergraduate degree

(03:40):
that I got would would help me in any sort
of fruitful way. Um, but I'm I'm thrilled that I
was able to write about this stuff that I love
so much and talk about in my everyday life and
and bring it to a general audience of people who
might not even know what linguistics is. So that's been awesome,
Thank you. Yeah, and it was. It was wonderful to read,

(04:01):
super fun, very entertaining. Definitely listeners check it out. UM,
can you tell us a little bit about yourself and
about the inspiration behind this more than just getting to
marry the things that you Yeah, absolutely so. UM. I
grew up a total language nerd, hardcore. I was obsessed

(04:24):
with what I would later learn was a field called
socio linguistics UM, which is where language and sociology and
culture intersect. You know, I was always so fascinated by
the way that UM people spoke and how it could
inform our perceptions of them, and the way that I
spoke and the way that it informed other people's perceptions

(04:44):
of me. You know, why was it that UM, when I,
as sort of a small woman, would would curse or
maybe even use um ten dollar words, UM, people would
be sort of surprised or scandalized, whereas and my male
colleagues would do so they didn't get the same reaction.
And and then you know, I was always just obsessed

(05:08):
with the thesaurus, Like I just loved big old words,
and I loved you know, the the swish and flack
of different you know, sounds. And I would later learn
that that stuff was called phonetics and phonology. Um. But
I I, yeah, I was obsessed with foreign languages and dialects.
And again how um, speaking of foreign language or or

(05:29):
having a certain accent or dialect feature could change the
way that a person saw you. So then when I
got to college and signed up for my first linguistics
one on one class, having no idea what the field was,
and learned there was this whole you know, small but
mighty um group of people studying formally um these subjects.

(05:49):
I I was so smitten. And the gender and language
classes that I took really inspired me and like lit
a fire, um more than anything else, because they they
highlighted these hidden gender biases and stereotypes um that we
all grow up using in our everyday language. UM. And

(06:13):
they're they're they're all over the way that we speak,
not only in English but in other languages. To like
languages with grammatical gender um, where gender is literally built
into the grammatical system. Um. We don't have that in English, um,
other than you know, our third singular pronouns he and she,
which you know, there's a reason why are our gender
third singular pronouns have become such a topic of contention

(06:34):
in in our language because they are really the only
um unit of grammar that we have in English that
is gendered. UM. And so that's you know, the little
category of language that's become sort of politicized. But yeah,
I was, I was so fascinated um and sort of
horrified but also inspired um to learn about all the

(06:57):
ways that gender and gender stereotype are lurking beneath the
surface of our language. Everything from you know, how we
use gendered insults and how there's such a such a
more robust wealth of of insults for women or referencing
femininity in English than there are for men, to the
ways that we criticize and perceive women's voices. Um, whether

(07:21):
it's you know, using a certain feature like up talk um,
where you end a declarative sentence in the upward intonation
of a question, or vocal fry, which is a vocal
quality where your larynx are very relaxed that sounds like this.
I mean, I'm sure as a as podcast hosts here
no stranger to criticisms of your voices. UM. And it
was really cool to learn about how so many judgments

(07:44):
not only of women's speech, but of the speech of
so many marginalized communities, UM, have so little to do
with the speech itself at the end of the day,
and very much to do with our preconceived notions of
those speakers. UM. And just you know, the the idea
of of male defaultness in our in our culture and
in our language, and how the way that men UM,

(08:07):
specifically you know, middle aged, white, straight cis gender men,
the way that they use language is um, what we
default consider prestigious and normal in our culture. UM, even
though UH linguists have found time and time again that
young women and communities of color are our languages linguistic innovators, UM,

(08:28):
because these are the groups that use language as a
form of power and a culture that doesn't give them
a lot of other ways to do that. UM. The
other example of male defaultness and speech that I that
I like to give because it's sort of like it
tends to shock people, as it shocked me when I
first thought about it. Was just the way that we
describe sex, like as penetration. You know that that word

(08:51):
places you know, penises as the protagonists and the narrators
of sex. You know, the opposite might be something like envelopment,
were enclosure, or if you want to approach it from
a sling angle, something like she thing. And I was
just like, that is wild. How how word choice um
with regard to gender and so many other identities something

(09:14):
that we don't even think about because we grow up
using language so organically. UM. And so you know, the
the opportunity to bring UM, some of these empirical studies
that are kind of inaccessible and only really read by
linguistic students UM to a general audience was really exciting
to me. UM. But yeah, I guess you asked me

(09:34):
to talk about myself and then I just tended you
talking about linguistics. But but but yeah, I am, I am.
I'm a writer and I always dreamt of being a writer. UM.
And I'm writing my second book now, which is about
the language of cults, from scientology to soul cycle um.

(09:54):
And how the how these groups, you know, the wide
spectrum of groups that the word cult can be applied
to in contemporary culture, from those as a notorious and
destructive as jonestown to those as um, you know, seemingly
innocuous and and constructive as something like peloton um. How
these groups use language to do things that occult or

(10:18):
a cult following would need to do, like create community
and solidarity and still ideology, creating us versus them, mentality, etcetera.
So I guess the the general theme with me is
that I'm I'm really interested in in language and culture
and um, so that's that's what I'm doing. But I
want to write about all kinds of things over the
course of my career. So yeah, as you should. Yes, yes,

(10:43):
So that was a great answer, and there's so much
to impact there, and I think we will because I
want to start with a sample, super easy question. Can
you give us a brief rundown on the history of
the English language and perhaps particularly when it comes to
this question of is it sexist? Because you talked about
that a little bit in the book, right right, Yeah,

(11:05):
So you know, the English language has such a storied
past um as as many languages do. But um, you know,
and this is the other fun thing about socio linguistics
is that you get to track how things like wars
and epidemics actually to to you know, be talking book
all about it. Um can inform how languages evolve. So

(11:29):
let me think of how I wanna tell this story
in a succinct manner. So basically we can start back
in the fifth century a D. This was long ago,
folks Um. The fifth century a D. That's when this
trio of Germanic tribes from Scandinavia showed up in the
British aisles unannounced. Um. And you know, we don't know

(11:49):
if it was peaceful or violent, but you know, probably violent.
And Um. Those tribes spoke this language called English UM.
I actually don't quite remember how to pronounce the name
of the language that they spoke, but it sounded like
Lord of the Rings language. Um. And so this lingo,
along with some of the North Germanic languages spoken by Vikings,

(12:09):
pushed Britain's Celtic languages to the outskirts of the country UM.
And so the product of all of these languages intermingling
um is what we call Old English UM. And it's
totally incomprehensible today, but you know, you might have come
across some Old English UM if you took nerdy language
courses in college like I did. UM. Anyway, Old English

(12:32):
was spoken until precisely the year ten sixty six a d.
And that's when the Duke of Normandy Um, who was
from France, this terrifying little man came in Um. It
came into England and murdered a bunch of people and
brought with him an early form of French UM. And
so that happened, and it was all very violent. But
then what was even more violent, speaking of epidemics, was

(12:55):
that the Black Death swooped in and killed off about
a third of the population UM. And so by the
fourteenth century, Um English had become the dominant language of Britain. Again,
not not Old French, but at this point English had
been influenced so heavily by Old French UM that it
gave us a new form, which was Middle English. And
then a few centuries go by, and a bunch of

(13:16):
stuff happens, like the Great vowel shift UM. And by
the fifteen hundreds, the traveled enabled British have started mingling
with you know, a ton of different people around the world,
and so globalization was starting to happen a little bit.
The European Renaissance was starting to happen a little bit,
and UM the printing press was invented, which was really

(13:36):
important for UM language standardization. So all of this starts
to happen. The first Webster's Dictionary was printed. Actually, I
don't know if it was Websters. The first dictionary was printed.
It had about dred words. The sixteen hundreds come along.
Colonization of North America takes place, and that North American

(13:57):
English UM starts to evolve, and that influenced by French
and Spanish and the West African slave trade, UM, and
the Industrial Revolution happens, and then the Internet happens, and
UM a bunch of happens, and then we have contemporary
American English. It was a great timeline. I like it.

(14:21):
Sorry that was kind of long winded, but the history
of English is so dramatic. I don't know how to
sacctly describe it. Yes, Yes, that was a very big question,
and I appreciate you. I think you did a really
great job getting that together. Yeah. So, going off of that,

(14:43):
you kind of discuss um how the English language isn't
necessarily sexist so much as like the people in power
have used it absolutely. Yeah, So there's nothing inherent about
the thousand consonants of English that would make it inherently sexist. UM.

(15:05):
But you know, as the story of the history of
English shows culture and human beings and how we interact
with each other and how we colonize and how we standardize,
really has a huge effect on on the way that
language moves. And so you know, many of the characters
in the story of the history of English our men,

(15:27):
you know, the army dudes, and the aristocracy, and the
merchants and labors and the printers um, who you know,
invented the printing press, um, and um started printing standardized
English grammar guides, UM. The dictionary makers, the industry and
technology folks. You know, because we live in a society
where historically it hasn't been as easy for women and

(15:48):
other marginalized folks to to do cool things from a
high position of power. UM. It's it's been hard for
them to define the world from the top down. Uh.
But you know, as it turns out, women do have
a huge, huge, enormous impact on how language evolves from
the bottom up, which is its own um sort of

(16:09):
even more important kind of power. UM. And that's what
the rest of words. Let us about really, right, yeah,
um so sort of really I know you talk about
and we've talked about this in an episode we did
in the past, of this sort of devolving of words
like if you look at um like master and mistress

(16:32):
for example. UM, so can you talk about that a
little bit? Yeah, absolutely so. UM. In English we have
these two forms of semantic change called pejuration and amelioration.
And pejoration describes a process of how words over time,
where a word that starts out with a neutral or

(16:54):
positive meaning eventually devolves to mean something negative, and amelioration
is the opposite it process. So sadly, nearly every word
the English language offers to describe a woman has at
some point during its lifespan been colored some shade of obscene. Um.
And there was this linguist name Muriel Schultz Um who

(17:17):
wrote this nine paper called the Semantic Derogation of Woman,
and in it she describes this process and looks at
so many of the words um, for which this process
is true. Um. And you know, it's no coincidence that
she wrote this paper in nineteen because you know, the
nineteen seventies, with the second wave feminist movement, that's when
we really saw the dawn of the study of feminist

(17:39):
socio linguistics. So it is relatively new, um, and you know,
expanding all the time and becoming more intersectional all the time.
And when when young readers of the book, who who
hold a complex intersection of identities come to me and
they tell me, like, I want to write about linguistics now,
it's just like makes me so be because we're really, um,

(18:01):
we're missing a lot of voices in the world of
feminist social linguistics. And there are a ton of people
doing really important work um in the field, but not
enough of them. So that's another conversation. But yeah, I
mean we can compare certain minimal pairs of words, like
you talked about master and mistress. You know, these terms
come to English by way of old French, and and

(18:23):
initially both of them indicated a person in a position
of authority, like a male and female heads of household. Um.
But you know, mistress obviously, as we know, it devolved
over time to mean, you know, a sexually promiscuous woman
with whom a married man um for indicates. And meanwhile
master um continues to describe a man who's in charge

(18:46):
of something like a household or an animal, or a
person who's conquered a difficult skill, like like a chef
or a karate master. Another example is buddy and sissy um,
which you know you to mean. They were just synonyms
for brother and sister. But of course buddy ameliorated to
mean you know, a comrade or a pal. You know,

(19:07):
it has this friendly, cozy connotation, while sissy devolved to
come to mean you know, sort of a weak, overly
effeminate man who God forbid reminds you of a woman. Um.
Sir and madam is another minimal pair. But yeah, you
you come across a lot of those. But it's really
interesting because you know, so many of the words that
we think of as incredibly degrading towards women, like oh god,

(19:30):
and here's where I'm going to have to skirt around
some of these curse words. So slut actually started out
as a fairly neutral term. Um. You know, hundreds of
years ago it was used to describe a sort of
messy or untidy woman, and um, it was sometimes used
to describe men as well. Um. Chocer at a point
describes a male character as sluttish, which I find entertaining

(19:54):
um to describe you know, this character slovenliness. UM. But
what we find with slut, and what we find with
so many terms for women, is that over time they
they come to mean a sexual slur. That's where they
end up. And that really reflects the position of women
in our culture. UM. You know, when we go to

(20:14):
insult a woman, we can't help but reduce her to
a sexual object. UM, whether that's by way of calling
her some type of animal or some type of edible
treat um, or just plain old, you know, calling her
a prostitute, which in itself is a problematic word. Um.
As you know, sex work is completely legitimate. UM. But yeah,

(20:36):
so I mean that that was a fascinating thing to discover,
and then what was also cool was to to learn
and share the information about reclamation um, because a reclamation
is sometimes you know, a controversial subject too, because you know,
not everybody is going to agree on which words deserve
to be abolished rather than reclaimed. And you know, something

(20:58):
that we see in culture is that, um. You know,
sometimes gendered insults will go out of style as soon
as the underlying belief in them does. So it's one
of the reasons why you never hear someone you know
call a woman an old maid or a spinster in earnest,
you know, really trying to damage them or disparage them anymore,

(21:21):
because it's no longer completely reprehensible to be a woman
who's over you know, thirty five and unmarried. Um. And
so you know, there were people, there were, you know,
feminists who I respect, who thought it was you know,
who would not have named their book word slut because
they think that slut is one of those words that
deserves to just go away entirely because it's problematic to

(21:43):
have a special word for women's promiscuity at all. Um.
And I agree with them there, but you know, I
might be slightly more of an optimist um when I
think about reclamation, because I like to think, you know,
if if we can only choose to use rendered insults
in positive contexts, so words slut or talking about you know, sluttiness,

(22:07):
even if it has to do with sex in in
a positive way, like I had such a slutty night
last night, it was amazing. But if we can only
use bitch in context of like bad bitch, badass, bitch,
me and my bitches, um, And by the way we
have women in hip hop in nineties hip hop largely
to thank for the reclamation of the word bitch. Um.

(22:28):
You know, we can almost they almost singlehandedly um or
responsible for reclaiming that word. Um. If we can only
use these terms in positive context, then as the next
generation comes up hearing those contexts, then they will no
longer think of a slut or a bitch in a
negative light. Um. And you know, if we can do that,

(22:50):
and then when we go to insult people, because Lord knows,
I love to insult people, if when we insult people
we can target their behavior rather than their gender, then
we can be more inclusive, more specific, more incisive. We
can be meaner in fact when we when we criticize
their behavior, because we're actually addressing the thing about them

(23:13):
that we don't like, rather than just saying like, oh,
you're a bitch, you're a slut, you're a c U
n t um. And the history of that word is
also fascinating and it and again did not start out
as a negative thing. Um. But yeah, that's why I
you know, the naming the book word slot was sort
of this um, the statement of of reclamation and my

(23:35):
belief and in using words only in in positive context
that have so long been used against us, because you know,
a more equal world is also one where less offense
is taken to language because there's um, there's nothing disempowering
about it, and language can really um work to empower
or disempower people in a in a truly material way.

(23:58):
So that's my long way to answer to your question,
perfect Um. Yeah, it's it's funny because I've I've shared
this story before on the show. But yes, as podcasters,
we do get a lot of criticism on our voices
and what we say. And one of my favorites is
back before I was even a voice, I was just
a producer. Um. I got a comment that said, I

(24:20):
know the producer of this show and she's a huge slut.
And I think about that all the time. I'd like
to I actually know me who are out of nowhere
like he put out of his way to insult the producer. Um.
But has anybody ever called Angelos slut? There's that? Well.
I do think it's interesting that um and it and

(24:44):
it highlights some of that that male defaultness again when
we have words like man slut, um, which highlights the
notion that you know, someone who's contemptuously promiscuous must be female. Um.
If we have to attack that masculine model, fire onto
it um in order for that to apply to men. Um.
And you know, we see the same thing or similar

(25:05):
thing with with words like man, bag, man, bun, guideliner,
you know, which which served to imply that objects often
thought to be frivolous, like makeup and purses, are inherently feminine.
And I in a in a former career, I was
a beauty editor, so I can talk about the history
of makeup and and men and how it is not
actually inherently feminine. But that's another podcast. Um yeah, and

(25:30):
how you know, and my other sort of pet peeves,
and we all have language pet peeves. But the fun
thing about being a linguists and some something that I
try to communicate is that we're not interested in the
way that people should talk. We're interested in the way
that people do talk. And so um, you know, correcting grammar.
That's something that people sometimes ask me when they hear that.
You know, I've studied linguistics that are like, oh, are

(25:52):
you always correcting people's grammar in your head? And I'm like, no,
just the opposite. You know, I'm not a pedant, I'm
not a grammarian. I'm I'm interested in the precise opposite,
you know. I want to know how people really do
talk in their most natural state and what that says
about their background and their experiences. And so I try

(26:12):
to remain as a non judgmental and as curious as
possible about language. And I think that in general that's
a that's a really good way to approach it. Um.
But yeah, I do. That said, I do have my
own little pet peeves, and some of them are are when,
you know, when people say things like, you know, girl
boss and she e O and mom preneur, you know,

(26:36):
they sort of like cutesify um terms that are are
not inherently gendered um, which highlight and perpetuate the notion
that the words boss and entrepreneur and CEO are sort
of tacitly coded male um. Even when people call me
a girl boss as a compliment, like I just cringe

(26:57):
because I'm like, what, First of all, I'm not the
boss of anyone. I literally have no employees. But also
if you're gonna call me that, please don't call me
a girl boss because let's not let's not perpetuate and
reflect these stereotypes, shall we right, And that's not a
double whammy in itself, because obviously a girl is a

(27:17):
juvenile to begin with diminutive. Yeah, not only does it
have to be hey, oh you're something special because you're
not male, so we have to say you're a female
of swords, but not only that you're a child or
you're a girl. So stop. I know, can you imagine
calling some six year old man a boy boss? It
would be so silly. I just wouldn't make sense going

(27:39):
to now, Yeah, I know, give it a try. We
have some more for you listeners, but first we have
a quick break for word from our sponsor and we're back.

(28:02):
Thank you sponsored. Because, as we've discussed, the media, love Love,
Love Love loves to critique female women voices, um, how
to stop vocal fry, how not to up talk, stop
saying sorry, stop using emoji, stop using exclamation points, and
emails and largely it seems like what it's boiling down

(28:26):
to is telling women and other marginalized communities to to
fit into this conform to this male dominated workspace. So
what are some ways that you have found or that
you think that we can find our own voices and
own our own voices in those spaces. Yeah, yeah, you're

(28:48):
absolutely right, Um, these spaces. I mean, culture in general
wants women and and folks of other marginalized identities who
don't speak quote unquote standard English, which is of course
the standardized English um that was put in place by
you know, stuffy old white men. They want, they want

(29:10):
everyone else to accommodate to that standard because we all
grew up thinking that that is proper English. Um, it's
prescriptive grammar. Um, that's the grammar that your English teacher
teaches you. Um. But really there is nothing inherently better
about it. And in fact, attempting to keep language from
moving forward or changing is a feudal effort because it

(29:32):
is going to change, and young women are you know,
going to be the ones to to change it. Um.
And that's what linguists have found time and time again
that young people tend to, you know, be quicker on
the uptake of linguistic change than older generations, and young
women tend to be about half a generation ahead of
young men. And so you know, really, when it comes

(29:53):
to linguistic innovation, we should be celebrating that and and
that doesn't only have to do with you know, innovations
that young women make, but you know, especially with with
everything that's that's going on in our country right now,
I can't not address how so often African American English
is criticized as being improper English or poorer grammar without acknowledging.

(30:18):
And this is something that you learn in linguistics, and
I'm so grateful for that that it is such a
complex and sophisticated systematic dialect um that is a product
of Black Americans oppression but also their innovation. Um. And
Black Americans grow up learning from an extremely young age
to code switch so that you know, in in certain

(30:40):
communities they're speaking one dialect and then maybe in an
office spaces or or white spaces, they're they're learning to
speak another dialect. And that's a form of bilingualism that
should be celebrated rather than condemned. But you know, I
remember growing up in Baltimore, you know, my English teachers
in middle school in high school criticizing Black students voices

(31:03):
when they weren't in class, when they were in the hallway,
um and you know, telling them not to use this
verb tense or or you know that pronunciation and um
that really perpetuates stereotypes and in an extremely negative, profound
way that that does keep people um from power, and
that does promote racism. But yeah, I mean, I think

(31:27):
you know, when you're talking about only your voice in
some of these spaces, it is challenging because sometimes a
person's most authentic voice will you know, be a hindrance
to them, even though there's nothing inherently wrong with their speech.
In fact, their speech is probably more sophisticated and more
inventive and more communicative than the speech of you know,

(31:50):
their bosses. And actually, linguists have an acronym for the
least innovative population of English speakers there, non mobile, older
rural males, and linguists call them norms, which I just
think is fantastic. Um. So you know, when we're when
we're at work, or or certainly when you're you know,

(32:11):
running for political office, or when you're you know, vying
for any sort of position of power, the expectation is
for you to accommodate to the speech of norms. And
you know, in in some workplaces, it's going to be
more acceptable to push back against that, you know, say,
oh hey, I read in words slut that UH had,

(32:31):
vocal fry and up talk and using like every other word. Um,
these are actually signs of linguistic savvy. And I can
point you to a number of empirical studies that disprove
these problematic standards that you've always held. UM. But obviously,
and not every workplace that is that going to be appropriate.
So sometimes what I like to tell people is that
when you get criticisms from a boss or something like that,

(32:54):
that you need to stop using vocal fry or so
many filler words or exclamation points in your emails or
you know, whatever it is. Um. You might have to briefly,
you know, temporarily accommodate in order you know, not to
get fired in order to keep your job. UM. But
then you can go back to your desk, or you
can go home, not wasting any time second guessing yourself.

(33:17):
It's really, you know, it's almost a form of gas
lighting when someone tells you that there's something wrong with
your speech, even though there's actually something wrong with their standards. UM.
But you can go back to your desk, or go home,
or log off Skype or Zoom or whatever service you're using,
and you can at least not waste any time worrying
that there is something inherently wrong about you, that your

(33:39):
voice is you know, naturally inauthoritative, and that you need
to change. You know, we all know what we need
to do in those spaces. Temporarily, we need to you know,
just talk like our bosses for the time being. But
at least you will have the confident knowledge that your
speech is there for a logical, powerful, provable reason. And

(34:00):
so in you know, a couple of years, a few years,
when you become the boss, you can resist perpetuating those
standards when you now have young women and other folks
coming up under you. Um, because you know, so many
of the criticisms that I myself have received in the
workplace of saying like too much or you know, being
to quote unquote opinionated or allowed or um any of

(34:25):
these other criticisms. Yes, so so much of them have
come from female bosses, and often their criticism is even
harsher because they figured, you know, I had to do this,
I had to fight tooth and nail to climb the
corporate ladder. And these are always white women, by the way, um,
you know, the Karen's of the world. They they you know,
they think I had I had to accommodate, I had

(34:45):
to fight my way up the corporate ladder. So this
is just par for the course, and you need to
do it too, and I'm going to hold you to
an even stricter standard. UM. Meanwhile, like these these speech qualities,
like like in vocal fry and and so, which of
the slaying that comes from African American and English that
you know, eventually within a few years ends up taking

(35:06):
a seat at the table of everyday English. Um. These
are qualities that everybody ends up using um in a
in a number of years. It's just that there are
these growing pains because when norms here this language, they
you know, subconsciously feel the grounds of linguistic change quaking
beneath them, you know. And this is a sign that

(35:26):
the that a new generation is rising up and coming
into power, and they don't like that, especially when those
people are people of color or women or both. So, yeah,
my my advice is really just to not let it
get you down, not let these criticisms get you down,
not let them distract you. Remain open minded about your
speech and non judgmental about your speech, but also non

(35:49):
judgmental of the speech of others who who aren't like you,
and then when you're the boss, make it an inclusive,
empowering space for folks who aren't norms. Right. And I
did love reading in your book when you were talking
specifically about when the fact that the black community would
coin these terms or um language like woke had been

(36:11):
really taken over. It's now blown obviously all kinds of
ways um and it's kind of ignored whence it becomes
popular and becomes a term that is acknowledged that it
was ever started. It began with the black community and
trying to beg those people that are not black to
understand what is happening in whatever political or even just

(36:32):
humanitarian a lot types of ways that their rights were
being taken away in any type of form. And I
did like that you did talk about that a little bit.
Can you talk a little more, And I know it
wasn't too big of an excerpt, but you were talking
about how it has originated there and how it kind
of just how big of an influence it does have
in everyday life. Oh. Absolutely, I mean, we have we

(36:53):
have African American folks and speakers of African American English
to think for all of our treasured slang terms in English,
you know, terms as new as woke and squad and
boy and as old as the use of bad to
mean good and the phrase I mean. I talked to
this amazing linguist um at the University of Texas at

(37:14):
Austin named Sonia Lainhardt, who studies African American English and
women um, and she told me that the first time
she ever heard a white male news anchor on the
television use the phrase, she nearly spit out her drink
because that derived from African American English. And you know,

(37:34):
not only that, but so many of today's most beloved
slang terms that we see used on social media all
the time, like throwing shade and read and work and
yass um and iconic. These are terms that are so
often attributed to you know, broad City or the Internet,

(37:54):
but they derive from ballroom culture, which was a community
of extremely marginalised black and Latin X you know, trans
and gay drag performers, m whose heyday was in nineteen
eighties ballroom New York. And we so often fail to
recognize and you know, it's not, you know, explicitly everyone's fault.
It's just it's our culture. You know, we don't want

(38:17):
to give credit where credit is due, and we don't
want to acknowledge, um, the originators of some of this language.
And by the way, like sort of like what you
were saying, these folks don't create slang because they think
it will be trendy and catchy and they want to
create a hashtag and they want to become Instagram famous.
They create this language because it's a matter of solidarity
and survival. You know, when when ballroom performers were using

(38:40):
some of that language in the eighties, it was so
they could identify who was safe to trust, who was
a part of their their group, um, So that they
could avoid persecution, so that they could avoid violence. UM.
And that is so much of why so many queer
communities and communities of color in with language, UM, because

(39:02):
they're you know, they're at the risk of of really
you know, real life violence. UM. And that's such an
important thing to recognize. And so it's like it's like
everything else, you know, we're seeing so much communication right
now about how you know, we wish that America loved
black people as much as they as we love black culture.

(39:22):
And that has to do with music and um and
fashion and very much has to do with language. And
so you know, the least we can do if we're
going to use some of the products of of these
communities is to support them at every turn. And I
talked a lot with Sonia Laine hard about this, and

(39:43):
she very generously told me, you know, we don't have
to stop using words like like woke and boy and
seven um. And these are just a few of the
countless examples. But what we have to do is show
up for these communities or else we're hypocrit it's um
and because at the end of the day, you know,

(40:03):
our language and our politics are connected, our language and
our ethics are connected, UM. And we need to remember that. So, yeah,
thank you for bringing that up. I love that. Yeah.
I loved in your book how you described women's conversations
like jazz and then particularly black women's conversation sort of

(40:25):
like speech building, a community building and consensus, because I've
never thought of it in that way, but that was
a really cool way to think of it because a
lot of the things that we do demonize the likes,
which I also like how you broke down there four
different types of them, and they oh there are six.
There are six six. Oh my gosh, that's so cool.

(40:46):
Those things that we demonize are sort of a way
of yes, I hear you. I'm like with you as
we're going through this conversational journey and you're building something
absolutely yeah. Yeah. So right, so you're talking about how
there's this linguist who has dedicated a lot of her
career to understanding the many forms of the word like
in English, and they're actually six of them, and they

(41:08):
all serve a very distinct purpose. And um, we don't,
you know, we don't even notice or acknowledge that, because
we just blame you know, teenage girls for all these
likes and for ruining the English language, even though um,
most people of all ages and all genders use all
six um, because they all are extremely useful. But yeah,
you were talking about them. You know, this the style

(41:31):
of talk that this one linguist, in particular, Jennifer Coates noticed, um.
In women's conversations, um is is likened to a jam session,
like a jazz jam session. UM, Because in conversations among women,
you'll often hear overlapping talk, you know, speakers repeating one
another or rephrasing one another's words, UM, and everyone is

(41:53):
sort of working together to construct meaning. UM. And so
you know, the sort of like one speaker at a
time rule doesn't apply even though you see that one
speaker at a time structure and a lot of conversations
among men because you know, and these are these are
large generalizations obviously, but um, it's interesting to think about
how a lot of the time, you know, women are

(42:14):
conditioned also, these are these are not you know, ways
of talking that we are born understanding. We're we're conditioned
to understand them and to use them. But um, you know,
women often you know, perceive the conversational floor on a
horizontal level as a way to you know, create meaning
and build solidarity, whereas men oftentimes see it um as

(42:36):
a in a vertical way, um, in order to express
individual achievement. Um. And so that's why you see this
this jam session E style. In in the talk of
women and um and yeah, Sonia Elainhardt Um had talked
about how minimal responses are something you so often see

(42:57):
in the speech of of black women's communities and how
they especially are are incredibly savvy at using things like
minimal responses and those are our words like mm hmm,
and you're right, and yes, um, to build on one
another's points and to uh support one another and um
sort of emotionally support each other. Um. And these are

(43:19):
things that are criticized even though they're not inherently bad. Actually,
as recently as yesterday, somebody tagged me in an Instagram post,
a new Instagram post where someone was, you know, perpetuating
this information that we see all the time, where they
were saying, like, ladies, we need to stop using filler
words like just you know actually, and I feel like

(43:41):
because these are just words that we have all learned
to use to soften the confidence of our convictions. And
just as we have been taught to express insecurity about
our appearance, we've been taught to use these hedges or
filler words. They don't even know the word hedge. Um.
We've been taught to use these filler words to express
us insecurity of what we're saying. And we need to

(44:03):
stop using them because that is just telling men that
we really are insecure. But that's just a first impression
and it's based on nothing, it's based on no studies.
The linguists who have empirically looked into hedges, um, that's
a synonym for filler words. These are also known as
discourse Markers have found that they are so rarely used

(44:27):
to communicate insecurity UM, and that they are much more
often used to to do some of those same things
like build solidarity and check for the face needs of
everyone in a conversation UM. And linguists have found that
often speech lacking in legs you knows and actually comes

(44:48):
across as two careful and robotic and unfriendly and these
these you know legs and you knows. And actually these
hedges are only used more by women than men because
women more often than not dive into sensitive territory during
their discussions, so men aren't having as sensitive of conversations

(45:09):
and so these speech characteristics aren't as useful to them. UM.
But when women are talking about everything from families to
relationships to therapy to you know, politics, UM, to social justice,
you know, you need some of these hedges in order
to account for the face needs of everyone in a

(45:31):
discussion and to sort of soften really sensitive, oftentimes harsh
and hard to hear sentiments. So yeah, I'm so right
when I start to think like, oh, everybody already knows
this word slept stuff I like get tagged in a
post like that and I'm like, oh, no, they do not.

(45:52):
We have a little bit more for you listeners, but
first we have one more quick break for work from
our sponsor and her back. Thank you sponsor. Oh my gosh,

(46:14):
I have so many things I want to ask you,
but we would be remiss if we didn't talk about cursing. Um,
because this is actually something I've been thinking about a lot.
I had a friend who, uh, she's actually my other
podcast host over on Savor Lauren. She curses a lot,
and she pointed out to me, like a month ago,

(46:36):
if you think about it, you know, we say motherfucker,
what if we said father, say son of a bit? Like,
it's always an assault towards women. That's in the end. Um.
And so you mentioned the history of the sea word
and a bitch and slut and me claiming these things.
Is there like a particular one that you would like

(46:59):
to dive into the history of and just women in
cursing in general, because we do have a real anxiety
about that, as you sort of alluded to. Yeah, yeah,
So there was this study. So basically I guess to
give a little bit of context because we are talking
about so many topics the this book words lit. I'm
sure some readers who are are listeners who are unfamiliar,

(47:20):
like what is this book that talks about so many things? Basically,
Like every chapter tackles a different subject having to do
with language and gender, from insults to grammatical gender, to
the conversations among women when men aren't around, and myths
about gossip and things like that too, cursing to genitalia,
naming slang throughout history. It like runs the gamut. It's

(47:41):
it's it's a big old beast. Um, it's a one
on one. It's it's a big one introduction. Absolutely. Yeah,
it's funny that you say that because I in the
early days of like putting together, UM, the outline for
this book, I kind of based it on my first
sex Gender and Language college syllabus the because I figured, like,
if I fell in love with this material in this class,

(48:03):
then that then probably work on other people too. Obviously,
it has gotten pretty far from my college syllabus. Um.
There there is no chapter in my Sex, Gender and
Language class called get an ode to Cursing while Female,
which is the chapter that you're referencing. Um. But I'm
a potty mouth too, and so I had to include it.
But yeah, I was really interested in talking about cursing

(48:25):
because I do curse so very much, and I'm also
like so resentful of the stereotypes that people who curse
just can't think of anything better to say. And I
was like, I really And also, you know, I I
was so mystified by why I, as a female, was

(48:46):
perceived as being you know, even more crass or almost
more intriguing in a way for cursing, um than men.
And so I found this study that was looking into
young men's and women's self reported reasons for cursing, and
it was it was pretty interesting because, um, I related

(49:06):
to a lot of the answers that the women in
this study gave. Um, you know a lot of them
talked about how there are reasons for cursing. Well, first
of all, I want to mention that linguist who studied
cursing have found that cursing is not inherently aggressive or violent,
even though it is perceived that way, which is also
why it's perceived as an inherently more masculine thing. But

(49:29):
in very few instances of everyday cursing are people using
it to convey aggression or violence. You know, there are
in fact forms of polite cursing, as in the sentence
oh my god, this banana breag you just baked is
the ship or I thing love your jacket? You know,
these are actively polite forms of cursing. They might be crassed,

(49:51):
they might be bleeped on I Heart radio, but you
know they are not inherently um violent. Um So. Anyway,
that some of these self reported reasons for cursing by
women interested me because they were having to do with
um personality and emphasis and crafting a certain identity. You know,

(50:12):
these were some of the reasons why women cursed, where
men self reported that they cursed just because it was expected.
And I thought that was interesting because people have this
sort of um awareness that there are these gender disparities
in our expectations of how men and women should use
language with regard to cursing. And I was thinking in
my head, you know, like I do that too. I

(50:33):
cursed for emphasis, for personality, for hutzpuff, for shock value.
Um never because it's expected. Sometimes I'll actively do it
just to like shake things up in a business meeting,
you know what I mean, Just like Let's see what
if I throw up, if I throw an F word
out here on one of these stuffy people in suits,

(50:54):
gonna do um and that, and that's sort of an
act of, you know, rebellion against expect asians and an
act of crafting a certain identity. And I think that's
what a lot of women do with cursing. UM. But yeah,
I think a lot of curse words to um like
to your point, are reflecting a masculine point of view,

(51:15):
and we talk about and some of them are are
profoundly homophobic as well. UM. And so you know, I
I love cursing, and I love the phono symbolism of cursing,
the sort of you know, hard plosive consonants, the cuz
and the puzz and the puzz and the uz. I
just like love the power and those sounds. Um. Those

(51:37):
are also some of the first sounds that babies utter
in their babbling phase, so they're sort of some of
our favorite sounds from birth. And so UM. You know
something that that I sometimes like to experiment with and
invite other people to experiment with, is um like creating
our own curse words, like in the in the book.

(51:58):
At a point I suggest us and do I buy
any means envision our culture doing away with our current
vocabulary of curse words and replacing them with you know,
more feminist ones. No, but it is fun to think
about it. It is fun to kind of reframe our
perception of language um as you know, as one of like, oh,
we can get creative with this stuff. So um. One

(52:20):
of the ones that I that I suggests holy clit,
which I think is kind of fun. Um. You know. Obviously.
The other thing too, that's really interesting is that our
curse words really reflect, um, the standards and fears of
our culture. So in um Canadian French, for example, so

(52:40):
many of their curse words have to do with religion
and Catholicism, like tabianic like which means tabernacle, or I
don't even know how to say that I'm Jewish, so um.
But but um in in English, so many of our
curse words have to do with sex, right, and that
really you know, it's it's the puritanism of it all,
and and the scandal of sex um is what that

(53:03):
really reflects. But we also have a whole category of
cursing that's you know, schatology, um, like asked which I
know because you told me will be bleeped. I think
that's so funny. Why is asked not blieped, but asked?
I guess because asked is sort of subtly implying just
the cheeks, and then asked was a little more internal.

(53:23):
You could probably get away with you know, it's a
donkey thing or whatever. Like my favorite, like two of
my favorites, would be asked hat because I don't think
it's used. Just find that as a funny vision. That's
like it was a literal thing. I was like, ah,
that's you have an ask for a hat or you know,
something like Dick. Like that's one of my other favorite

(53:44):
was because it was a funny is not many I thought,
it's not as known as what do you mean Dick?
And I was like, but you know, he's a dick
or there a dick, you know stuff like that, and
it's kind of like people kind of confus if I'm
not saying, you know, any other car sports. But also
because of the sounds, is a really hard Yeah yeah exactly, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(54:07):
it's true like so so many of our and Dick
is like sort of the one outlier that paints um
you know, fallacism, and is that even a word fatacism
in a negative light? Um? Whereas we have so many
that portray you know, Volva's in in a negative light. Um.
But yeah, I mean not to men like douchebag, like

(54:28):
all these terms. Oh my god. This is a story
that I don't think I've ever told, like in an
event or a podcast or anything before. But I remember, like,
it's so funny when you're experimenting with cursing for the
first time when you're a kid, because you're like so
intrigued by this language that you know is taboo. You
just like have a feeling is taboo. But but you
don't know what these individual words mean, and the only

(54:50):
way to learn what they mean is to like use them.
But sometimes you use them in a context that's like
so it's just like such a misstep. Like I remember
the first time I ever used the word douche, I
called my mom a douche. I was like seven. I
don't know where I heard it. I must have heard
it at school, uh, And I called my mom a

(55:11):
douche and she was just like what, Like, where did
you hear that? My mom was like a very composed scientist.
By the way, like my mom, I didn't really curse
in front of my parents in the way that I
genuinely do in my everyday life until I was like
in my twenties, because I just didn't think they could
handle it, because they're not really that vulgar. They're these

(55:31):
very like mild mannered scientists. But um yeah, I like
called my mom a douche and she was like, Amanda,
do you know what that is? And then of course
she very clinically described this like yeast infection causing even
like product that was invented because our culture thinks that
vaginas are dirty, um, when really there's some cleaning folks. Um.

(55:54):
But anyways, um yeah, that's just a funny story about
how like we just the way that we come to
use curse words or come to learn curse words is
such an awkward process. So like, why not make that
awkward process for the next generation just a little more feminist,
you know, have your seven year old come to you
and be like, holy clip, pepper pig is on again

(56:17):
or whatever that is. As soon as I thought, I
don't think I have ever thought I would hear, so
thank you for that. I enjoyed that one. So right
now as we record this, probably by the time it
comes out it's no longer true. But right now it
is Pride month, um, and we are seeing this massive

(56:42):
social push for change and protesting, and and your book
you you write um about how in the right hands, uh,
language can change the world, and that you say it
may sound melodramatic, but it isn't. Um. Yeah, so can
you I guess to close this out because this we

(57:03):
have talked. We've talked a little bit about those things,
about how the black community and the gay community has
given us so much and they've been like these innovators
in language. And you have a chapter on the gay voice.
And while lesbians don't really have a gay voice, and
I feel like they are. There's so many things we
do take for granted when just to tag on because

(57:26):
this is a complete sub different subject. But I know
you talk a lot about gender specifically, and obviously that's
a really big topic right now with some of the
um things with our novelists who people want to love.
I'm not going to call her she who shall not
be named, but just that conversation, I know you had
a whole chapter on that and I found it really

(57:47):
fascinating because you kind of just instead of like being antagonistic,
you took down the actual history of it. So if
you can align both of those things. Yeah, I know
that's two different No, No, I think like I think
the through line really is that you know, there's there
was some French philosopher who said that language is the

(58:10):
medium for humans, just as water as to fish. Like,
we create the world with language. We don't just reflect it,
we don't just describe it. We actively create the world
through the repetition of language through everything we say. And
that's a a theory called linguistic performativity, and it was

(58:31):
in part pioneered by the feminist icon Judith Butler, who
talked about gender performativity. And that's a whole that that's
kind of that's like gender studies class now. But um,
but it is it is so true that we cultivate
our beliefs through language. There is no other way to

(58:51):
do it. We don't have beliefs without language what we do.
And that's another theory called linguistic determinism versus linguistic relativism.
Um but yeah, but um, And this actually relates to
you know, some of what I'm I'm writing about in
the cult book UM as well is that you know,
ideology could not be instilled or proliferated without language. And

(59:17):
so the way that we describe things, whether it's gender
or sexuality or race, it not only you know, reflects
what we believe, but it creates a world. It creates
a system of beliefs, a culture of beliefs. And so
becoming aware of the histories of some of these words

(59:39):
and the history of how language develops UM can really better.
It can help us make better informed decisions about how
we want to use language. It can help us create
the world that we want to live in, or continue
to perpetuate a world that that isn't equal, and it

(01:00:00):
is problematic, and that is oppressive. And this isn't stuff
that we learn in elementary or middle or high school.
We don't learn about these things. We just come to
use language so naturally. And so my whole mission with
with socio linguistics, and it's one that I so hope
continue is far past what I'm able to write is

(01:00:21):
that I don't want to police anyone's language or force
anyone to say anything. I don't want my language to
be policed. I don't want people to tell me that
I can't name my book words let I don't want
people to tell me that singular they is ungrammatical. I
don't want people to tell me any of that stuff.
But really, what this information and why I'm so grateful

(01:00:44):
to these linguists, why this stuff is important, is because
it's allowing us to become more educated, so then we
can make our own decisions about how we want to
use language to create the world that we want to see. UM.
And you know, there was this amazing linguist that I
talked to a ton for this book named Lao Zaman
who um studies language and gender, particularly as it relates

(01:01:07):
to transgender communities. He's at the University of California, Santa Barbara,
and he and I, he and I were really share
a lot of of points, because you can get really
pessimistic about a lot of things, UM, particularly when you
see how like whenever there's a push for inclusive language,
a lot of the times the opposition is like more

(01:01:30):
powerful than the initial than the initial movement, and you
have all this backlash and all this hate speech because
people don't want to see language change, because people don't
want to see culture change. Um, but he's incredibly optimistic,
and like the last line in in my book, UM says,
like he says, I have to be optimistic to make

(01:01:52):
it through. You have to believe it's possible. You know
you have and this and this has to do with activism.
It has to do with language, It has to do
with everything, Like you have to believe that if you
put forth the effort to educate yourself and make sure
that your actions and your language is reflecting that education,
you have to believe that that will create a better world.

(01:02:13):
And and languages a is an incredibly peaceable way to
do that, and you don't even have to leave your house. Um.
So you know, language change and ideological societal cultural change
go hand in hand. You cannot force someone to use
language a certain way and expect their ideology to follow.
So you have to get people on board with the

(01:02:34):
ideology first. But if you are already on board with equality,
with gender equality, with you know, with certain sexual and
gender identities that maybe weren't approved of fifty years ago,
with racial quality, then goodness knows, our our speech and
our language should reflect that. And you know what I'm

(01:02:56):
trying to do is give people the tools to make
that happen. Just some of the tools. Um. So that
those are kind of generalized statements, but they can apply
to to so many communities. I think, yes, Um, and
thank you so much for for joining us and having
this conversation, for writing the book. Um, there's so many

(01:03:16):
things listeners if you want to know, like about the
history of gender, which is much shorter than I thought
it was the word gender, yet it is. Yeah, I
was like, what the history of curse words? Um? Our
thoughts about sex, which we didn't get to get into,
but how words shape our our thoughts about sex and

(01:03:37):
our bodies. That's all in this running of the Gamut book,
the defense of y'all, which I really appreciated since her
in the South. As Georgians, we definitely really appreciated that.
Oh hell yeah, I will always go to bat for
you all. I have felt so judged for so long,
but I feel it's being more accepted now. Yeah. Um,

(01:03:59):
can you tell the listeners where they can find you,
where they can get your book all those things? Yeah, yeah,
you can find me on Instagram at Amanda Underscore Montell
and there I postum some little short mini lessons about
language and gender. Um quite a lot. So if you
want even more of the stuff in micro doses, you

(01:04:20):
can find it there um And then you can find
word Slut wherever books are sold. It's also available in
e book and audiobook and I recorded it so nice, nice, Well,
thank you again, thank you so much for joining us.
Definitely go check Amanda out. Listeners, go read word Slut.
It was a very fun, wonderful read um. And if

(01:04:43):
you would like to find out as you can, you
can email us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at i
heeart media dot com. You can find us on Instagram
at Stuff I've Never Told You, are on Twitter at
mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks. It's always to our superproducer Andrew Howard.
Thanks and thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never
Told You. This protection of I Heart Radio more podcast
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