Bonus 62: Approaching word games like a linguist - Interview with Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer of Spectacular Vernacular

Word games are a fun way of thinking about the structure of language, from which letters tend to appear in combination with each other to how many different clues you can give towards the same word. Many people have been refining a new set of word game solving strategies recently thanks to a new game called Wordle. 

In this bonus episode, we're joined by Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer to get enthusiastic about word games and puzzles! Dr. Nicole Holliday was our very first interviewee and is an assistant prof at Penn currently working on what it means for voice assistants like Alexa to "sound Black". Ben Zimmer writes a language column for the Wall St Journal, and helped Gretchen get one of her very first writing gigs. Together, they hosted the word-game-themed podcast Spectacular Vernacular for Slate from 2021 to 2022. We talk about patron questions, including lots of Wordle content: what Ben and Nicole learned from interviewing the creator of Wordle, our favourite Wordle variants such as IPA Wordle and Semantle, and comparing our Wordle solving strategies with a demo game on air. 

Announcements:

If you're reading this within 2 days of posting, the Lingthusiasm liveshow  is THIS WEEKEND! Join us on 4pm April 9th (Canada) slash 6am April 10th (Australia)! (What time is it for me?) It's a live Q&A for you, our wonderful patreons, all about fan fave topic: swearing! We're hosting this session on our Discord server, where you can share your favourite swear words and associated stories in various languages either during or before the show in the text chat, and it will be available as an edited-for-legibility recording in your usual Patreon live feed if you prefer to listen at a later date. If you're seeing this text, you already have access -- if you haven't joined the Discord yet, here are instructions for linking your Patreon and Discord accounts. If you run into any issues getting on the Discord, we'll also be online for about 20 minutes before the show starts, so you can send us a message on Patreon, Discord, or at contact@lingthusiasm.com if something isn't working. 

 Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

• Spectacular Vernacular 
• Spectacular Vernacular episode with Gretchen and Lauren 
• Nicole Holliday on Twitter 
• Ben Zimmer on Twitter 
• Lingthusiasm episode 'What Does it Mean to Sound Black? Intonation and Identity Interview with Nicole Holliday'
• Spectacular Vernacular episode 'Choosing Your Voice - VocaliD founder Rupal Patel talks about the importance of identity when choosing a digital voice'
• Spectacular Vernacular episode 'The Making of Wordle - The creator of the online word game tells us about the product decisions that have us playing day after day'
• Absurdle
• IPA Wordle
• Semantle
• Wikipedia entry for Dunbar's Number
• Gretchen's Wired article on Dunbar's Number - 'A Mission to Make Virtual Parties Actually Fun'
• Lingthusiasm episode 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Theory of Mind' for more on Dunbar's Number 
• The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book: Lexical perplexities and cracking conundrums from across the globe by Alex Bellos
• Rosina Lippi-Green 

You can listen to this episode on this page, via the Patreon RSS or download the mp3. A transcript of this episode is available as a Google Doc. Lingthusiasm is also on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com or chat to us on the Patreon page. Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic. Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

To chat about this episode and other lingthusiastic topics with your fellow linguistics fans, join us on the Lingthusiasm Discord server.

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, and our production manager is Liz McCullough. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.