This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm episode ‘Linguistics of TikTok - Interview with Adam Aleksic aka EtymologyNerd’. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the episode show notes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Gretchen McCulloch. I’m here with Adam Aleksic, better known as “Etymology Nerd,” for his online videos and author of the book Algospeak. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about analysing how the structure of social media sites shapes how we communicate on them. But first, some announcements. Our most recent bonus episode is our 100th bonus episode! As a celebration, we are answering your linguistics advice questions. Need help navigating whether to correct someone’s grammar or copy their accent? Or “How can I support my peers as they age out of having the coolest slang?” We have the advice episode for you. Also, in celebration of our 100th bonus episode, we’ve decided to go back into the vault and revisit our very first bonus episode. This is a sweary episode about swearing that’s a bit too spicy for the main feed. Now, we’re releasing this very first bonus episode to anyone who follows us on Patreon. Whether you’re at the free or paid level, you can get this extra extra bonus bonus from the vault with a new intro featuring some extra sweary facts we’ve learned in the intervening years. Go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm to get access to these and many more bonus episodes. If you become a patron by July 1, 2025, you can get a special Lingthusiasm logo sticker with extra linguistics doodles on it sent to you in the mail.

[Music]

Gretchen: Hello, Adam.

Adam: Hi, Gretchen, excited to be here.

Gretchen: Thank you for coming on the show. Before we get into talking a little bit more about linguistics on TikTok and other short-form videos, we’re gonna start with a question we ask all our guests which is “How did you get into linguistics?”

Adam: Well, my gateway was etymology, like a lot of other people I know. It started in 10th grade. I read Mark Forsyth’s excellent book The Etymologicon. Couldn’t get enough of it. Read a bunch of other books. Started a little blog for myself called “Etymology Nerd.com.” I’d do a little daily blogpost on etymology. I’d keep that up throughout college, where I studied linguistics, and then I asked myself the question that everybody graduating with a linguistics degree asks themselves which is “What do I do next?” That’s when I started making short form video.

Gretchen: Very relatable – “What do I do next?” You started a TikTok channel, and the rest is history. Did you have some growing steps along the way?

Keep reading

Lingthusiasm Episode 105: Linguistics of TikTok - Interview with Adam Aleksic aka EtymologyNerd

TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are an evolving genre of media: short-form, vertical videos that take up your whole screen and are served to you from an algorithm rather than who you follow. This changes how people talk in them compared to earlier forms of video, and linguists are on it!

In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about the linguistics of tiktok with Adam Aleksic, better known on social media as etymologynerd. We talk about how Adam got his start into linguistics via etymology, the process that he goes through to make his current videos get the attention of people and algorithms, and how different forms of media (like podcasts vs shortform video) relate differently to their audiences. We also talk about the challenges of writing a book about language on the internet when it changes so fast, comparing the writing process for Adam’s upcoming book Algospeak with Gretchen’s book Because Internet.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:

In celebration of our 100th bonus episode we’ve decided to go back into the vault and revisit our very first bonus episode - with updated sweary commentary! We’ve made this extra bonus bonus version available to all patrons, free and paid, so feel free to send it to your friends!

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about your linguistics questions! In honour of our 100th bonus episode of Lingthusiasm, and because our first advice episode was so popular, here’s another episode answering your advice questions, from the serious to the silly!

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ 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:

• Adam Aleksic’s website
• etymologynerd on TikTok, Instagram, and Substack
• Algospeak by Adam Aleksic
• ‘Where Do Memes Come From? The Top Platforms From 2010-2022’ by Aidan Walker for Know Your Meme
• Lingthusiasm episode ’Emoji are Gesture Because Internet’
• Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch
• 'It’s Complicated - The Social Lives of Networked Teens’ by Danah Boyd (pdf)
• Lingthusiasm bonus episode ’Words from your family: Familects!’
• 'Language and the Internet’ by David Crystal (2001)
• Lingthusiasm episode ’Helping computers decode sentences - Interview with Emily M. Bender’

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

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Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

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, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).