Heresy!

"that is the rollercoaster that is life"

[defroqued]

It's a Sin

The walls of the Ministry had seen enough – but they never spoke. They only watched.

Perpetua and I never got along – we fought over everything, tried to impersonate each other and, let's face it, tried to prove who was better. But who was better? Was anyone at all?

Perpetua was a quirky person. You never knew what he was going to do. He kept staring at me with a half-smile, but I didn't know why. What was going through his mind this time? 

"If I were a dog, I would be one of those small chihuahuas. You know, one of those barking puppies that sit on the edge of the bed and go 'grrrrrrr'," he suddenly said.

What?! That landed harder than anything else he’d said.

As he spoke, he took a small dog collar out of a bag and held it up for me to see.

I looked around the corridor—the endless stone, the flickering lights, the sigils etched so deeply into the walls they felt permanent. I had spent so long here trying to outdo Perpetua, prove I was sharper, faster, more indispensable.

He stepped past me then, heading down the corridor, his voice echoing back. The word hung in the air, heavy and dangerous.

I wondered if he was trying to prove me wrong.  I wondered if all of this was just a humiliation for his success and the lack of mine. The thought lingered longer than I wanted it to.

Perpetua had always moved through the Ministry like it belonged to him. Doors opened faster. People listened sooner. His name carried weight in a way mine never quite did, no matter how carefully I followed the rules, no matter how often I stayed late or kept quiet when others complained.

I'm Perpetua’s puppy. I'm his dog.

The Ministry walls didn’t object. They never did. And, for the first time, I wondered if they were watching not to judge – but to remember.

[zombiequeens]

John Cain Arena, Melbourne | 10.04.23

📷 Mitch Sweet

[lingthusiasm]

Lingthusiasm Episode 105: Linguistics of TikTok - Interview with Adam Aleksic aka EtymologyNerd

TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are an evolving genre of media: short-form, vertical videos that take up your whole screen and are served to you from an algorithm rather than who you follow. This changes how people talk in them compared to earlier forms of video, and linguists are on it!

In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about the linguistics of tiktok with Adam Aleksic, better known on social media as etymologynerd. We talk about how Adam got his start into linguistics via etymology, the process that he goes through to make his current videos get the attention of people and algorithms, and how different forms of media (like podcasts vs shortform video) relate differently to their audiences. We also talk about the challenges of writing a book about language on the internet when it changes so fast, comparing the writing process for Adam's upcoming book Algospeak with Gretchen's book Because Internet.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:

In celebration of our 100th bonus episode we've decided to go back into the vault and revisit our very first bonus episode - with updated sweary commentary! We've made this extra bonus bonus version available to all patrons, free and paid, so feel free to send it to your friends!

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about your linguistics questions! In honour of our 100th bonus episode of Lingthusiasm, and because our first advice episode was so popular, here's another episode answering your advice questions, from the serious to the silly!

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

Adam Aleksic's website

etymologynerd on TikTok, Instagram, and Substack

Algospeak by Adam Aleksic

'Where Do Memes Come From? The Top Platforms From 2010-2022' by Aidan Walker for Know Your Meme

Lingthusiasm episode 'Emoji are Gesture Because Internet'

Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch

'It’s Complicated - The Social Lives of Networked Teens' by Danah Boyd (pdf)

Lingthusiasm bonus episode 'Words from your family: Familects!'

'Language and the Internet' by David Crystal (2001)

Lingthusiasm episode 'Helping computers decode sentences - Interview with Emily M. Bender'

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

[ashthewaterghoul]

Is this anything?

[mephistopheles2022]

Tobias Forge

Rolling Stone Magazine UK

[sakuraspoke]

i will hold you for the minute it takes

[callmelittlesanshine]

Cried.

[ghuleh-recs]

Dance Macabre ⛧ Ghost: Rite Here Rite Now (2024)

I gotta say I am really enjoying this new cultural outreach program introducing metalheads to musical theatre.

[hecetas]

Happy Rite Here Rite Now release day!

photos by hecetas at Isleta Amphitheater

[gravehags]

it’s the same picture

[littlebirdofprey]

Ghost's overarching message continually being like: life is hard and unfair and we don't deserve the bad things that happen to us by forces out of our control but they aren't your fault. life is still worth living. you arent tainted or broken or alone. claim your joys and weather your storms. you can hope for the future. and I'm just so emo. when I started listening to them like 10 years ago I never thought that the silly satanic pope band was gonna make me feel so many things.

[chapel-of-rizztual]

That’s a whole ass Renaissance painting

[copia]

endless ghifs 32/? ⛧ source — Ghoul hyping up his Papa for Absolution

[ghuleh-recs]

rhapsody in gween

(for @writingjourney ♡)

[ghostchems]

watch your step

[borderline-culture-is]

BPD culture is I know everyone leaves eventually. I can't get mad at people for saying they're not going to leave me, they don't know they're lying yet. It's a lie they won't know they're telling until they're already half way out the door. I know how it goes. I can't expect anything else.

.

[the--anarchists]

One of the things that pisses me off most about this genocide and overall occupation is how many people say it's so complicated and there's so much nuance and there isn't one easy solution. This is one of the simplest things I have ever seen. Zionists invaded palestine in 1947-48. They have occupied it for 76 years while taking more and more land. They kidnap and torture and massacre Palestinians day in day out for those 76 years. They control every aspect of Palestinian life, including their water and medical care. And now they are committing another genocide against them. Where is the complication? What is hard to understand? "Well, Jewish people need a place where they won't be discriminated against" I absolutely agree. So make every country in the world safe for Jewish people. Fight against anti Semitism across the world. Don't commit a genocide and set up an ethnostate.