Click here to listen to ‘If I were an irrealis episode’
Language lets us talk about things that aren’t, strictly speaking, entirely real. Sometimes that’s an imaginative object (is a toy sword a real sword? how about Excalibur?). Other times, it’s a hypothetical situation (such as “if it rains, we’ll cancel the picnic” - but neither the picnic nor the rain have happened yet. And they might never happen. But also they might!). Languages have lots of different ways of talking about different kinds of speculative events, and together they’re called the irrealis.
In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about some of our favourite examples under the irrealis umbrella. We talk about various things that we can mean by “reality”, such as how existing fictional concepts, like goblins playing McBeth, differ from newly-constructed fictions, like our new creature the Frenumblinger. We also talk about hypothetical statements using “if” (including the delightfully-named “biscuit conditionals), and using the "if I was a rich man” (Fiddler on the Roof) to “if I were a rich girl” (Gwen Stefani) continuum to track the evolution of the English subjunctive. Finally, a few of our favourite additional types of irrealis categories: the hortative, used to urge or exhort (let’s go!), the optative, to express wishes and hopes (if only…), the dubitative, for when you doubt something, and the desiderative (I wish…).
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Thank you to everyone who shared Lingthusiasm with a friend or on social media for our seventh anniversary! It was great to see what you love about Lingthusiasm and which episodes you chose to share. We hope you enjoyed the warm fuzzies!
In this month’s bonus episode, Gretchen gets enthusiastic about swearing (including rude gestures) in fiction with science fiction and fantasy authors Jo Walton and Ada Palmer, authors of the Thessaly books and Terra Ignota series, both super interesting series we’ve ling-nerded out about before on the show. We talk about invented swear words like “frak” and “frell”, sweary lexical gaps (why don’t we swear with “toe jam!”), and interpreting the nuances of regional swear words like “bloody” in fiction.
Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 80+ other bonus episodes! You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.
Here are the links mentioned in the episode:
'How do you get someone to care about Shakespeare? Two words: Goblin Macbeth' on CBC
Lingthusiasm episode 'This time it gets tense - The grammar of time'
'Realis and Irrealis: Forms and concepts of the
grammaticalisation of reality' by Jennifer R. ElliottLingthusiasm bonus episode 'How we make Lingthusiasm transcripts - Interview with Sarah Dopierala'
'A grammatical overview of Yolmo (Tibeto-Burman)' entry on WikiJournal of Humanities
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Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.
Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, and our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
Here’s the link again to ‘If I were an irrealis episode’
Thanks for listening, and stay Lingthusiastic!
Lauren & Gretchen