53: Listen to the imperatives episode!
When we tell you, \u201cstay lingthusiastic!\u201d at the end of every episode, we\u2019re using a grammatical feature known as the imperative. But although it might be amusing to imagine ancient Roman emperors getting enthusiastic about linguistics, unlike Caesar we don\u2019t actually have the ability to enforce this command. So although \u201cstay lingthusiastic!\u201d has the form of the imperative, it really has more the effect of a wish or a hope. \n\nIn this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about the range of things that imperatives do in various languages. We also get excited about why imperatives are often one of the first verb forms that children learn, how imperatives make up the general \u201cvibe\u201d (aka mood) of a verb, and imperatives in the fairy-tale retelling Ella Enchanted. \n\nAnnouncements: \nWe\u2019re doing a virtual live show! It\u2019s on April 24, 2021 and you can get access to it by becoming a patron of Lingthusiasm at any level. The Lingthusiasm liveshow is part of LingFest, a fringe-festival-like programme of independently organized online linguistics events for the week of April 24 to May 2. See the LingFest website for details as more events trickle in: https://lingcomm.org/lingfest\n\nThe week before LingFest is LingComm21, the International Conference on Linguistics Communication. LingComm21 is a small, highly interactive, virtual conference that brings together lingcommers from a variety of levels and backgrounds, including linguists communicating with public audiences and communicators with a \u201cbeat\u201d related to language. Find out more about LingComm21: https://lingcomm.org/conference/ \n\nThis month\u2019s bonus episode is a Q&A with us, your hosts! We get enthusiastic about answering your questions!, like: What do you think is the best food to name a dog after? If you had to remove a phoneme from English, which do you think would have the most interesting results? How do you keep up with linguistics research outside academia? We also talk about our recent news and upcoming plans for 2021, "tell me you're a linguist without telling me you're a linguist", and lots more great questions from the patron Discord. Become a Patreon now to get access to this and 47 other bonus episodes, as well us our upcoming live show! www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm\n\nFor links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/643499852841582592/lingthusiasm-episode-53-listen-to-the-imperatives