How did Elephant’s Fork in Suffolk get its name?
Did you know discourse analysis can help you make the most of your 15 minutes with your physician?
Why the heck is the fish menhaden so important to locals?
LanguagingHR, a monthly podcast about life and language in Hampton Roads, explores all things linguistic, and if that sounds way too academic for casual listeners, don’t be fooled.
Hosts Jill Winkowski and Prue Salasky, both word nerds who are educated in linguistics, dig into some cool topics while diving deep into the diversity and history of southeastern Virginia.
The pair clicked as classmates in an Old Dominion University syntax class back in 2016, both sharing an enthusiasm and curiosity for the power of language.
Winkowski is a former linguist for the U.S. government who taught English as a second language overseas. Salasky is a former Daily Press reporter and columnist who spent half a year teaching English at an immersion high school in Bulgaria before the pandemic cut that opportunity short.
After brainstorming ideas on how to put their love of linguistics to use, Winkowski came up with the answer, asking, “How about a podcast?”
That appealed to Salasky, a native of England who believes, “This whole other layer of language is what distinguishes us as people. It’s like the essence of communication and the essence of being human.”
“Think about the 6,000 languages and the way words and sentences are put together and how that reflects our worldview,” Winkowski said. “There’s a connection between language and culture and how we see things.”
The first episode of the monthly podcast debuted in January 2024. The approximately half-hour shows are linguistic stories examining everything through the lens of language. In between the banter, they slice in source interviews.
Some of their recorded conversations are from experts in their field, like three botanists who shared their knowledge on the scientific names of plants and fungi local to Hampton Roads. They taped man-on-the-street style interviews trying to unearth the origin of Elephant’s Fork, which is where routes 460, 10 and 32 meet near downtown Suffolk. For part of that episode titled “Road Trip,” they traveled to different corners of Hampton Roads researching some of the region’s more distinctive names.
Salasky was delighted to learn about the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which has strict rules on what can and cannot be called geographic features. For example, only five geographic features have an apostrophe in their name.
“One of those is Martha’s Vineyard. There are none in Virginia,” she said. “Those are lightbulb moments, things you’ve never thought about before.”
Salasky finds linguistics liberating after a lifetime of adhering to the strict rules of writing.
“It’s not prescriptive,” she said. “At the heart of it is observing and analyzing how people speak. There’s not a right way and wrong way.”
The women generally record at the sound studio in the Slover Library. Norfolk singer-songwriter Skye Zentz provides the music they use.
Winkowski and Salasky are self-taught sound editors and even initiated a micro-internship program with Christopher Newport University to help with building their website.
Find languagingHR on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and iHeartRadio.
