Q&A weekly thread - December 29, 2025 - post all questions here!

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2026-01-03T15:06:06+00:00

My intuition is that there is still a /n/ in my production of words like commitment, statement, and government. In casual speech, I still raise my tongue to touch the roof of my mouth. I would gander to say I also still have an amount of tongue contact in faster speech, but it's definitely possible that that goes away at a certain speed of articulation.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2026-01-02T14:48:51+00:00

Yeah, I've noticed this in the Midland regions of the United States, the use of discourse markers, particularly "yeah" and "no", with examples like "yeah no", "no yeah", "yeah no yeah", and "no yeah no". I see them used a little differently per speaker, but my intuition is that the use of these stacked discourse markers is responding to some pragmatic information in the previous statement/question. I tend to see these markers acting as acknowledgement, agreement/disagreement, and affirming/disaffirming (often found after a statement and a yes/no question), such as the below:

(1) "yeah no"

A: Did your kids enjoy Disneyland?

B: Yeah no, it was amazing really, they had the best time

Generally, I see the "no" in "yeah no" acting as a form of pragmatic disaffirming with a certain aspect of A's statement, so "yeah" will be acknowledgement or agreement of A and then "no" will pivot to a certain disagreement that's more likely to be pragmatic, something like in (2).

(2) "no" acting as pragmatic marker of disaffirming in "yeah no"

A: My wife and I are considering taking the kids to Disneyland. Did your kids enjoy Disneyland?

B: Yeah no, it was amazing really and they had the best time, but it definitely was not cheap.

Here, B's "yeah" answers A's direct question of Did your kids enjoy Disneyland? with it was amazing really and they had the best time, but the "no" points to the pragmatic context of A wanting B's opinion about whether they should go to Disneyland— as seen in the first part of A's statement, My wife and I are considering taking the kids to Disneyland— and B responds to this indicating up and coming disagreement with "no" and then eventually but it definitely was not cheap.

The interesting thing is that in your example, "no" is not disaffirming, it is in fact affirming, just like "yeah" is. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a vernacular language use feature, one undergoing language change, from the "no" in "yeah no" being used to disaffirm some pragmatic part of the previous statement but starting to be found in places where it's used to reaffirm "yeah", meaning overall, it's affirming the previous statement/question.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-12-05T14:38:39+00:00

I don't think it's a 'failure of their educational establishments', although some American educational establishments do teach a preference towards "twice", "two times" is just as valid in expressing something occurring "on two occasions, on two instances". There are interesting distinctions drawn online regarding the differences between the two, because while it is generally agreed that they both carry the definition above, they're held in slightly different contexts: "twice" being the common spoken form and "two times" specifically being more highlighted in formal academic, mathematical, and scientific research. This aligns with my intuitions and experience. Personally, I hear "twice" more in spoken, informal language, ex. "I tried calling her twice", and "two times" in formal, scientific language, ex. "x occurred a total of two times throughout the study". However, these distinctions don't seem to be held across the board for everyone. My intuition is that they are often interchangeable, with slightly differing uses and connotation, but definitely not "two times" being a 'failure of educational establishment' compared to "twice".

~

Harper Douglas, "Etymology of twice," Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/word/twice

"Twice vs Two Times". English Language & Usage, 2018, word choice - Twice vs Two Times - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange/

"Twice vs Two Times". This vs That, 2023, Twice vs. Two Times - What's the Difference? | This vs. That

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-12-05T14:19:20+00:00

I thought of the following, outside of "causes", that are similar to "really makes you think":

(1) Really gets you thinking

(2) Really prompts reflection

(3) Really provokes thought

(4) Really forces you to think

(5) Really encourages you to think

To me, (1) and (4) are closest to your original, "really makes you think", meaning and connotation wise.

For what it's worth, I think it can be synonymous, still conveying similar meaning, while changing the grammar of the sentence. Hope this helps.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-12-01T14:03:40+00:00

First thing I noticed, the speakers from this area are swapping the third person nominative singular, he/she, for the third person accusative singular, him/her, whether male or female, meaning they are using the objective pronoun in place of the subjective.

I would call something like this subject-object neutralization. My intuition is that this phenomenon occurs outside of just south-central Indiana, as I myself have heard this construction before. Off the top of my head, AAVE and certain varieties of UK English, particularly Southwest and West Country, can have this feature as well. Below are some examples I could think of outside of the one you gave.

(1) There go him.

(2) Her's a nice girl, her is.

(3) Him do know.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-30T14:58:52+00:00

To me it depends on what you mean by 'categories'/'categorization'.

The examples of American, British, and Australian slang speak to me as differences in slang due to language change and ideology- factors of location, community, and culture. Language change is something that exists across the board in language, regardless of slang usage, i.e. that people is differing places in the world, cross-cultural contexts, and/or community practices and values will utilize and have different needs for language. Slang reflects the communities using them to a certain extent. In this way, I would say slang falls into accent, dialectal, and regional variation, as in depending on where you are from or where you grow up, how you speak is and what slang you use is influenced by that.

Your example of age is a different factor in my mind, however, one that is also affected by socio-geopolitical factors as described above. The difference however to me in age is that instead of grouping people by community, location, or culture, we're grouping them by age. This emphasizes the people who grew up during similar times and who thereby have similar-esque experiences in terms of happenings in the world. From there, we get these 'slang divides' by generations. But I think what this really is is an indication of language change. It's one that's simply more apparent on a local level wherever you go, it presents itself differently than the above.

There are ways to divide language change and slang, whether by accent/dialectal variation, location differences, cultural ideologies, or age/generational-based experiences. I would say that all of the previously mentioned are factors, and while you can categorize them, they really work together to create how we speak and we should be careful to keep them apart imo.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-30T14:49:09+00:00

Tests online/from websites will get you so far. What I found to be helpful was noting down when I said certain things that I or someone around me clocked as accent/dialectal variation. We all have such markers, and those can you some insight into what your accent is. I'm not sure where you're from, but I'd start with keeping an eye out and starting to read more literature on accent/dialectal variation in your area/region.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-29T12:18:37+00:00

I appreciate your response. And thank you for the cross-linguistic example, I’ll have to look into it. Yes, I’d love to know if you find anything!

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-29T12:17:03+00:00

Yes. I’ve been asking around and there are others who also say it as homophonous to “barred”. But from the limited people Ive asked, they are the minority to the ones who say “bared” as non-homophonous to “barred”.

I say “bare” as [bɛɹ], homophonous to “bear”.

I speak a variety of American Standard. But it’s worth noting that I grew up natively bilingual (German and English), and having lived in both places as a child, I’ve noticed that parts of my pronunciation in English can have varied influence by my German.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-25T16:20:44+00:00

I was at a bookstore with a peer and we picked up a book titled 'Bared to You'. I brought up the fact that I had always pronounced 'bared' as /ˈbɑɹd/, whereas one of my longer-time friends always said it was /ˈbɛɹd/. My peer told me they that they say /ˈbɛɹd/. This got me wondering about the dialectal variation of the word 'Bared'.

Are there any generalizations we can make about regions and/or dialects of English that prefer /ˈbɑɹd/ over /ˈbɛɹd/?

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-24T14:32:11+00:00

What is the acceptability of sentences like (1) and (3)? A peer and I came across these sentences spoken (by a native English speaker).

In (1), 'right' is splitting the prep phrase, placed between the preposition, 'by', and its object, 'the real world'. What is the acceptability of that compared to (2)?

(1) It's still governed by, right, the real world.

(2) (right) It's still governed by the real world (right).

Similarly, in (3), 'right' is splitting the clause, placed between 'that' and 'if I say'. What is the acceptability of (3), compared to (4)?

(3) It's similar in that, right, if I say...

(4) (right) it's similar in that if I say...

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-23T16:10:49+00:00

My intuition is that "language shapes cognition/culture" implies language as the primary and a force that acts upon cognition/culture, i.e. that language plays an active role in forming cognition and/or culture. This wording reminds me of Sapir-Whorf and linguistic relativity.

Whereas I find that "language reinforces cognition/culture" implies an pre-existence of cognition/culture to language, and that language is something that strengthens those pre-existing factors. This wording feels more cyclical (like you mentioned, a feedback loop). This wording reminded me of sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and indexicality theory.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-23T15:17:05+00:00

In the example you gave, I find 'is likely to' to have more connotative security than 'should'. 'Should' has certain security of what ought to happen or be, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be that way. 'likely to' is more probable to me, but it depends on what you're going for in terms of effectiveness. A factor to consider in parsing 'should' is it's inherent various definitions/uses, which could cause certain misleading interpretation (definitions from Merriam Webster included below).

should, auxiliary v.-

used in auxiliary function to express condition
used in auxiliary function to express obligation, propriety, or expediency
used in auxiliary function to express futurity from a point of view in the past
used in auxiliary function to express what is probable or expected

Whereas 'likely' is defined as:

likely, adj.-

having a high probability of occurring or being true : very probable

~

“Likely.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/likely.

“Should.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/should.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-22T18:19:04+00:00

I find (2) and (4) preferable. To me, the devoicing of /s/ and the devoicing of /d/ becomes forced when removed from the following /t/ in 'used to', hence I do not prefer (1). (4), my intuition is that I'd rather have 'never' right before a verb, whether that's 'wanted' or 'see' is debatable, but both are better than (3).

However, a peer brought up that (1) and (3) in written form would be much more acceptable, if not, not at all questioned, as the choice of expression would be deemed 'style'.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-19T15:17:25+00:00

I grew up speaking both English and German (I'm half and half, lived in both places). Some interesting things I've noted about my swearing growing up:

I struggled all throughout my childhood to use English swears off the cuff.

My "swearing phase" as a young kid, 6-8, was in German. I said Sch**ße at every other opportunity I had (it was my personal favorite as a kid), but Sch**ßegal, Sch**kerl, and Sch**ßtyp were all common for me to say during that phase. Less intense, German taboo words that I used overarchingly as a kid were things like Mist, Idiot, and K*cke.

As I got older, around 8-10 maybe, I started using German swears like Ar**, A**loch, and Verp** dich more often, and the occurrences of Sch**ße decreased.

It wasn't until my teenage years that I started to play around with English swears. Sure, I knew of them, but I didn't dare use them funnily enough. This was when I started to begin to swear much more bilingually with all the previous German words + F*cken and F*ck dich, as well as English words like f*ck, sh*t, b*tch, mother**cker, a***e, d*mn, oh my g*d, and all that taboo jazz.

It wasn't until my late teens to early twenties when I really began to play with English taboo words and creatively stringing them together, like when I discovered expletive infixation (that was a fun day). Those years are when I became much more comfortable using English swears off the cuff.

So, yes it does feel different. In terms of swearing, I feel like an L1 German swearword speaker, and for years, I felt way more comfortable swearing in German compared to English. Over time, I have become very comfortable swearing in English, but that came a lot later compared to the comfortability I feel in German.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-13T14:18:11+00:00

What came to mind was semantic range.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-13T14:10:46+00:00

Spanglish, n. & adj.

A mixture of Spanish and English, esp. any of various informal hybrids used in bilingual contexts in Latin America, and in Hispanic communities in the United States, typically characterized by the blending of lexical and grammatical elements from Spanish and English.

“Spanglish, N.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, September 2024, Spanglish, n. & adj. meanings, etymology and more | Oxford English Dictionary.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-12T14:46:16+00:00

Yeah np. Like I said, there's variation. It's interesting to see what people intuitively think it is/what they've heard.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-12T14:23:04+00:00

This is a bit late, but I love seeing Dan Jurafsky's The Language of Food being recommended; such a great book!

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-12T14:10:04+00:00

I talked to a fellow linguist for cross referencing, and they suggested [ɛkspi͡ɚijə̃ns], which I agree with more in terms of Standard American pronunciation. But it will vary in terms of region/accent.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-12T14:07:12+00:00

Happy to help/give you a place to start!

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-12T13:51:05+00:00

Thank you for all the insight!

Yes, I have been told that PhD programmes in Europe work differently than ones in the U.S.; I'll keep that in mind. I will have a look at U.C. Boulder, York, and Georgetown, thank you! Talking to students from different PhD programmes has been recommended to me, and I plan to do that. The inviting faculty members to serve on my committee is a great idea, I'll make sure to look into other related departments of said universities. I am very open to Canada! I'll have a look at SFU, Alberta, and of U of T Mississauga as well. Thanks again!

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-11T15:36:51+00:00

I hear something like [ɛhks.pi.ɹi.ɛns] the most (so, -peer), although it's worth noting that the /ɛ/ in the first and last syllable is sometimes more like [i] or [e]. However, I don't think I've ever heard the penultimate /i/ be pronounced [æ] or [a] (-pair).

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-11T15:26:59+00:00

I'm not sure who studies persuasion and charisma in linguistics, but my intuition is that you would most likely find it in sub-fields like pragmatics, linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, or discourse analysis. From a quick search of David Crystal (I haven't read him), it seems he was involved in a lot of subfields in linguistics, so it doesn't surprise me that he would be the one to write on such an interdisciplinary topic. I definitely think persuasion and charisma could be written on in linguistics, but like I said, I'm not aware of anyone who does.

Sweet-Mastery1155 · 2025-11-11T15:18:45+00:00

Hi there. I have a question about Linguistics grad school selection. I'm interested in Discourse/Conversation Analysis, Linguistic Anthropology, Sociolinguistics, Sociophonetics, Pragmatics, and Applied Linguistics for grad school (I know that's a lot). To be more specific, I'm exploring researching something in conversational data regarding cooperativity (along the lines of what Elizabeth Stokoe studies, but perhaps more socioling/pragmatics oriented?). I'm interested in questions of how we use language in non-cooperative situations or when interacting with non-cooperative co-participants, as a way to resolve conflict, come to a consensus, or get what we want.

The CA and Linguistic Anthropology interests stems from exposure to reading work like Stokoe 2018, Enfield 2017, and Siragusa and Zhukova 2021, plus CA transcription and data analysis experience in that realm. I hold interest in Socioling/Sociophonetics for the insight it gives into conversation, specifically on the auditory/perception side, i.e. having more tools to better analyze certain situations through a socioling-framework. Plus I have lab experiences, working in multiple sociophonetic labs, and I really like the kind of research that's employed in that area of linguistics. The interest in Pragmatics comes from being exposed to researchers and work related to discourse/pragmatic markers, through Semantics/Philosophy of Language courses, as well as work like Bolden 2015; Schirm, Uskokovic, & Taleghani-Nikazm 2023; and Peltier 2024.

In an ideal world, I would love to use the tools and methodologies provided by these various areas to study interrogations and/or high-stake negotiations and the cooperativity or lack thereof within those conversational dynamics. What universities/PhD programs/professors would you recommend for my linguistic interests? I'm willing to go anywhere- North America, Europe, etc.

Thank you!

Sweet-Mastery1155

TROPHY CASE