Inside the Little Plastic Castle

Find in library • DRM-free audiobook • BARD

As I hoped back in December, last month I found enough brain to tackle An Immense World by Ed Yong. I was convinced by pauraque’s extensive summary and review, and the 24 days I spent reading were a pure delight. Ed Yong is a great narrator: he fluently pronounces the Neo-Latinate species names as well as the international assortment of human researchers. He somehow manages not to giggle at his own (frequent) jokes.

He wildly succeeds at explaining the distinctive sensory worlds of many of our planet’s inhabitants. Along the way, he explores how scientists design experiments to pin down how, for example, a scallop sees or a leafhopper senses vibrations. He tells the truth that our current understanding is not necessarily the whole answer — that science means change. So much of the current state of the art began as theories mocked by the scientific establishment.

Yong is keenly aware of human as well as animal variety. When addressing the senses, he fluently acknowledges that not humans all have a standard complement—for example, his researchers are described as sighted when that’s relevant. He consciously seeks out women and non-binary researchers, as explained in his 2018 Atlantic article "I Spent Two Years Trying to Fix the Gender Imbalance in My Stories -- Here’s what I’ve learned, and why I did it.".

Most importantly, he’s such a good writer. He clearly loves his subject, and he plays with formal and informal registers. He provides enough detail to enthrall while lightly alternating between technical explanations and emotional delights. He organizes the books by sense, and each one almost stands alone. It helped that I gave myself permission to read for enjoyment, not trying to remember the details because there is no test. I'm looking forward to rereading it.

I do recall some stunning facts:

• Scallops have many eyes — from a dozen to more than 200.
• Owls have asymmetrical ears, enabling them to locate sounds both horizontally and vertically.
• Some creatures use the Earth’s very weak electromagnetic field to navigate—but we don’t know how. The signal is so subtle that it’s not contemporaneous: the whales, birds, and turtles must travel several miles before they can know if they’re headed in the right direction.

He starts with dogs, guaranteeing sympathy from half his readership. (I was charmed by references to his own Corgi pup, Typo.) In this 350-word excerpt, he introduces the canine olfaction expert, Alexandra Horowitz, and her dog Finnegan:

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ETA even with a transcript I got it wrong! pupillate means “cry like a peacock” glaucitate means “cry like a whelp”

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Word Matters is four Merriam-Webster lexicographers talking about English language. Catnip, right?

Episode 8 is "A Collection of Obscure Words That Are Pretty Much Useless"

Sometimes, a word falls out of use through no fault of its own. Other times, the blame lands squarely on the word's shoulders.

It's a beautifully moderated conversation between Emily Brewster, Neil Serven, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski, collaborating with New England Public Media.

Stream show, with full transcript

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-matters-podcast/episode-8-useless-obscure-words

The Black Language Podcast

by blacklangpod

https://blacklangpod.buzzsprout.com

Creator Anansa Benbow opens my brain to the huge varieties of black language, especially AAVE/Ebonics. The first episode declares: no grammar police and pinged my disability pride when she said, "I stutter. Imma gone make this podcast" and carried on. The second explores the pragmatic function of aight so boom in storytelling. The third episode takes direct aim at the reality that Black creativity drives US culture, including language change, and yet White people valorize White AAVE speakers while excoriating Black AAVE speakers.

She compares the experiences of Rachel Jeantel, star prosecution witness in the George Zimmerman trial whose testimony was simply not understood by white jurors, with Bhad Bhabie, a white rapper who gained fame by disrespecting her mother on Dr Phil:

Language appropriation of Black people is not simply language borrowing, unfortunately, it comes with the erasure of Black people. Again, the push to promote stan/twitter/internet language, instead of recognizing that the language used on social media comes from Black people is an example of that erasure.

Sorry to report no transcripts for this podcast.

Accentricity

by accentricitypod

https://www.accentricity-podcast.com

Sociolinguist Sadie Ryan explores linguistic ideology as applied to Scots. In her words:

This is a podcast about people and how they talk. About accents, and why we care about them. About languages, and how they refuse to be controlled. About why there is no such thing as bad grammar, no language is more important than any other language, and every voice is valid.

I learned that Scots language is scorned as uneducated by many English power brokers. A pair of episodes document kids just learning to talk and how they speak one year later.

I had to listen to the first episodes several times to get accustomed to her accent — sadly, no transcripts. Excellent bedtime listening.

Learned about both of these from the Huge List of Linguistics Podcasts hosted by Lauren Gawne aka superlinguo:

https://www.superlinguo.com/post/158448074588/linguistics-and-language-podcasts

Long-Term by idiopathicsmile

Completely adorkable Good Omens gen fic, POV of a very queer, very UU minister interviewing a couple she calls Bowtie and Sunglasses. Only canon you need to know is that the couple getting married are a demon and an angel who’ve been flirting for 6000 years.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19703515

If you need a snort-giggle, thefourthvine's hilarious "I Need A Sweet Potato" essay

https://littera-abactor.livejournal.com/7748.html backup

has been podficced by a conspiracy of EuroPodders

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21562057

They deliver on their straightforward slogan: Listen to Audiobooks and Support Local Bookstores

You might think that Audible.com is the only place you can get audiobooks for your phone. Amazon promotes Audible on its site, and it advertises on countless podcasts and radio networks. I firmly believe Libro.FM is superior.