A WORDY CELEBRATION OF ALL THINGS LEXICAL,
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Tuesday, April 25, 2025
Episode 83: Lorna Gibb
Our next episode of That Word Chat is a book release party during which we'll tour the world with Lorna Gibb, who explores endangered languages in Rare Tongues: The Secret Story of Hidden Languages. The book's North American release and our chat with Gibb are both Tuesday, April 22.
Gibb is associate professor of creative writing and linguistics at the University of Stirling in Scotland. She was born and raised in Bellshill near Glasgow and earned her doctorate in linguistics from the University of Edinburgh. At the University of London, where she earned her bachelor's and master’s degrees, she found herself to be the only speaker of Scots Gaelic.
She is the author of six books, including The Extraordinary Life of Rebecca West, Lady Hester: Queen of the East, and the novel A Ghost’s Story.
Sign up below, and join us at 4:30 p.m. EDT (20:30 UTC) on Tuesday, April 22.
Past chats
TWC 76: Karen Yin, author of The Conscious Style Guide, a "roadmap for writing and speaking with sensitivity and awareness"
TWC 77: Danica Salazar of the Oxford English Dictionary, talking about new entries reflecting Australian English
TWC 79: Jesse Schiedlower, author of "The F-Word," now in its fourth edition, and the online Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction
TWC 75: Cory Doctorow, prolific science fiction author, activist and journalist, on his books, and monopolies in tech and publishing
Word Masters
Lisa Johnson Kate Karp Merrill Perlman Tom Pfeifer Carol Pickerine
Word Lovers
Ann Bourne DeAnna Burghart Mignon Fogarty
Word Nerds
Rebecca Benner
Patty Boyd
Hilary Cadman
Elizabeth d'Anjou
Mary-Jane Doherty
Susan Fitzgerald
James Gallagher
Rosemary Gretton
Rachel Herbert
Neil Holdway
Kristine Hunt
Susan Karcz
Beverly Michaels
Amanda Miller
Voncille Meyer
Mary Norris
Lori Paximadis
Dayna Reidenouer
Deb Ring
Alice Steinke
Sue Toth
Laura Weisman
Karen Wise
Karyn Zafran
Word Fans
Christina Allen
Betty Ann Bardell
Donna Marks Pleasant
Jeanette Fast Redmond
Amy Schneider
TWC 81: A panel of international lexical superstars with a wide-ranging discussion about the words that typified 2024
TWC 80: Amanda Jones, author of "That Librarian," about her ordeal that came with standing up to book banning in her Louisiana town
TWC 78: Ben Yagoda, author of "Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English," talking about English expressions making their way to the U.S.
Thank you to our That Word Chat patrons
TWC 74: Erin Brenner winner of the ACES Robinson Prize and author of The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors
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That Word Chat is a blast every time we do it. It's also a big time commitment for host Mark Allen and producers Heather Saunders and Sarahni Pecson. We work hard to bring you a casual, fun, usually professional experience. What keeps us going most is hearing how much you love the experience. Please consider being part of the team with various levels of support, each with some cool benefits — most levels include access to our private Slack group. You can opt to support us monthly or annually.
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TWC 70: Words of the Year 2023, a discussion of the words that typified 2023, featuring one of the greatest panels of wordsters ever assembled
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Photo by Alan Wesselson.
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TWC 66: Jeff Jarvis, internet pioneer and CUNY professor, talking about the age of print and the future of online
TWC 65: Maggie Lorenz, just after the Scripps National Spelling Bee, with some of the inside scoop
TWC 63: Roy Peter Clark, America’s writing coach talks about his latest book, Tell It Like It Is: A Guide to Clear and Honest Writing
TWC 61: Copy editor Amy J. Schneider on her new book, Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction
TWC 60: Gael Spivak, on the International Organization for Standardization's new standards for plain language
TWC 59: Words of the Year 2022, featuring an international panel of linguists and lexicographers
TWC 58: Joshua Blackburn, game designer and quizmaster and a chance to play the new League of the Lexicon
TWC 56: Kelly Wright, a sociolinguist specializing in linguistic discrimination and its institutional outcomes
TWC 55: Ryan North, author, illustrator, supervillain consultant, polymath and creator of Dinosaur Comics and more
TWC 54: Ellen Jovin, author of Rebel With A Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian
TWC 53: The brothers Zimmer, Ben and Carl, talking about writing about words and science
TWC 52: Danica Salazar of the Oxford English Dictionary and plans for the Oxford Dictionary of African American English
TWC 50: Dennis Duncan of the University College London talking about his "Index, A History of the"
TWC 49: Anne Curzan, the voice of linguistics for Michigan Public Radio on the show That's What They Say
TWC 48: Half dozen guests representing the dictionaries and organizations that selected a word of the year for 2021
TWC 47: Our second annual foray into word puzzle, featuring four puzzle creators from The Inkubator
TWC 46: Paula Froke, editor of the Associated Press Stylebook, on the decision-making process at the influential guide
TWC 45: Fred Shapiro, editor of the updated edition of "The New Yale Book of Quotations"
TWC 43: Editing superstars Denise Cowle and Louise Harnby, co-hosts of The Editing Podcast
TWC 44: Editor and sensitivity reader Crystal Shelley, creator of the Conscious Language Toolkits for Editors and Writers