boost: Etymology Nerd is a glorious linguistic communicator

[jesse_the_k]

@etymologynerd on TikTok • etymology_nerd on YouTube (note underscore)

My first fandom is language. Let me enthuse about the Etymology Nerd Adam Aleksic. He's a short-form video presenter, essayist, and recently-published author. He started on Reddit, but attained fame on TikTok, and his YouTube is 90% shorts (but not every TikTok has made it to YouTube). It's important that his videos are accurately captioned, cause he speaks faster than an auctioneer on meth. No video description and his hand-held camera means flashing and shaking images. The videos reward multiple views.

Six Videos to Start With

• Aleksic constructs a bird language from whistles
• Drivers of accelerating emoji meme change (Spoiler alert: African American Vernacular English)
• Categorizing various memetic techniques for categorizing things. He doesn't describe the memes, so skip it if you're unfamiliar with "tier lists" and "sports brackets"
• Esoteric programming languages made from memes
• Morphological gaps : why we say terrible and stupid but not stupible and terrid
• Fun take on "skibidi"

Three Essays to Read

If you prefer prose, his Substack newsletter offers RSS at https://etymology.substack.com/feed or luck into one of his maybe-monthly essays here via etymologynerd_feed (DW feeds only go back two weeks).

• why BDSM can be surprisingly useful in linguistics — i'm serious
• slop capitalism and dead internet theory: viral ai-generated memes
• technofeudalism and the death of serendipity: why the grocery store is better than an app

Want more? My first internet #lingcomm crush interviewed Aleksic on Lingthusiasm podcast 105—both audio and transcript there, with insights into best practices in vertical video and why it feels different than old-style horizontals.

Any linguistic communicators making you happy?

Comments

[otter]

I recognize him from when I had access to tiktok via fb. Interesting stuff, and yes, hyperspeed.

[jesse_the_k]

I wonder if he speeds up his video? I simply cannot imagine spitting out that much language in one take. (Although: see also Daveed Diggs and pretty much any rapper.)

[seascribble]

ha! I started writing a comment about how he was on Gretchen's podcast which you should definitely listen to and read her book before I finished reading the post and saw I was preaching to the choir. The topic of discussion actually made me grumpy, just because everything being video or audio is my nemesis and he talked a lot about optimizing for views/going viral, but I did find him engaging.

While I've embraced audio more

[jesse_the_k]

...video is often my nemesis as well: one decently edited paragraph can convey as much as most videos.

I enjoy his enthusiasm, and the "esolangs" (conlangs for programming) made me appreciate just how wild fans can get.

I do think he's on to something re: vertical video. By filling the entire phone screen, it acts as a portal to suck our attention away from the frame (the room, any other things in that room, RL in general).

Re: While I've embraced audio more

[seascribble]

Oh yes, he's lovely and also makes good points. I just hate his medium.

[lunabee34]

Thanks for the links!

[jesse_the_k]

Happy to spread some smiles.

[isis]

Oh cool! I subscribe here to languagehat_feed which is a smorgasbord of various languagey things. Sometimes it's interesting, sometimes not.

I don't do video, ugh.

ETA I thought that name sounded familiar - I enjoyed his NYT opinion piece.

I've been reading, but never commenting,

[jesse_the_k]

at Language Hat for a very long time. His Linguablogs is a gold mine for linguistic instruction and blather on the internet.

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Oh, The Insidious Creep of Trump's Speaking Style? Brrrr.