Talking etymology with the Lexis linguists!


Just a quick newsflash from me:

Last week I had the pleasure and privilege of talking to Dan, Lisa and Jill, three of the team behind Lexis, a podcast about language and linguistics that’s primarily aimed at A-Level teachers and students, although its great content is accessible to all.

We talked about etymology – what it is, how it works and how people can get into it. I thoroughly enjoyed our chat together, but admittedly I was quite nervous about how I would come across in the finished product. Well, clearly the Lexis team have skill not only as podcast hosts but also as audio editors, because I’m delighted with the episode and I sound like I have half an idea what I’m talking about!

It’s now available online to listen to for free. So, if you’d like to consume some of my linguistic content in audio form, and to get to know me and my process of doing etymology, you can listen to the episode (number 31) here:

Episode 80 – Matthew Hunt on voice pitch Lexis

Welcome to episode 80 of Lexis in which Dan and guest interviewer Ben talk to Dr Matthew Hunt, Lecturer of Sociolinguistics, University of Southampton about voice pitch, including:What it is and how we measure itWhat it ‘means’, including its ‘social meaning potential’The judgements that we make about pitch and why these matterGendered perceptions of pitchHis work on domestic violence cases and the role of pitch in perceptions of ‘victimhood’Gender and football commentariesAdvice to A Level students on exploring pitch and its role⚠️Content warning⚠️We discuss domestic violence and abuse in broad terms in part of this episode. Journal of Sociolinguistics paper on the effect of pitch variation on perceptions of domestic abuse victims: https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12723The second paper, ‘Gender Penalty? Linguistic Discrimination and Perceptions of Female Football Commentators’ is with Gender & Language and currently in press. We will update the link once it is published. Matthew’s website: https://matthewhuntlinguistics.home.blog/ Matthew’s University of Southampton page: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/626sz2/doctor-matthew-hunt Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social ContributorsLisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlanceyRaj RanaMatthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA Music: Serge Quadrado – Cool Guys Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
  1. Episode 80 – Matthew Hunt on voice pitch
  2. Episode 79 – Charlotte Entwistle on language & personality disorders
  3. Episode 78 – John Kelly and the 2025 Words of the Year
  4. Episode 77 – Lynne Murphy and the 'Americanisation' of young people's English
  5. Episode 76 – Dani Yin & Cheryl Wakslak on gender and exclamation marks in digital communication

That’s all for now!

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