How Language Nerds Solve Crimes | Otherwords
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- The way you speak can be as unique as a fingerprint... and as useful for investigators in solving crimes!
Otherwords is a PBS web series on Storied that digs deep into this quintessential human trait of language and finds the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted. Incorporating the fields of biology, history, cultural studies, literature, and more, linguistics has something for everyone and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be human.
sources:
Host: Erica Brozovsky, Ph.D.
Creator/Director: Andrew Matthews & Katie Graham
Writer: Andrew Matthews
Producer: Katie Graham
Editor/Animation: Andrew Matthews
Executive Producer: Amanda Fox
Fact Checker: Yvonne McGreevy
Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing
Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: John Campbell
Stock Images from Shutterstock
Music from APM Music
Otherwords is a production of Spotzen for PBS Digital Studios.
© 2024 PBS. All rights reserved.
sources:
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academic.oup.c...
core.ac.uk/dow...
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cdn.aaai.org/o...
www.iarpa.gov/...
www.nextgov.co...
web.stanford.e...
www.rogershuy.c...
www.thetext.co...
www.npr.org/20...
theconversatio...
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We need a Netflix Forensic Linguistics True Crime series, hosted by Dr. B
Grammar Police: Cunning Linguists
She would do good doing the OtherWords series on Netflix.
Yes yes YES!!
I would watch that.
Agreed!
If I remember correctly, it was the phrase "You can have your cake and eat it too" that got Ted caught. He didn't understand the phrase so he rephrased it to make sense to him. Only his family knew this. So when they read his phrase in the paper they thought "Oh no!"
Too "smart" for his own good. If a phrase ain't broke, don't fix it.
@@IndomitableAde But that phrase IS broke!
@@MatthewTheWanderer "you can't eat your cake and still have it" fixed
@@MatthewTheWanderer how? The phrase is you _can't_ have your cake and eat it too, meaning once you consume or use something you no longer have it. Old Ted would have been better off saying you can't have it both ways.
No, as I recall, he actually had correctly translated the phrase from French, as "you can't eat your cake and have it too." This made him stand out as more well-educated than the average person who only knows the phrase as it exists in common American English speech-- "You can't have your cake and eat it too." Also, as I recall, Ted's brother knew Ted to use his unusual version of the phrase periodically.
TIL to keep my manifesto short
Get LLM to revise it into "professional" or other styles. Talking about "A.I." changing things, could this defeat forensic experts. Possibly they could look through all of the queries sent to LLMs that resemble the note like they can for Google searches?
Wanted : Grievances redressed (various).
Done.
Put it through google translate.
Put it through google translate.
"Hi, ChatGPT, can you make this read like someone else?"
You know what’s weird? This information is going to help me in my dnd game. I play a linguistics focused scholar. We lean a lot less into combat focused play and more into political intrigue and mysteries with tons of roleplay and storytelling. This information in the video? That’s going to be very helpful in informing me how to better play my linguistics scholar. Thank you!!!
That sounds so fun!
@@miriamrosemary9110 thank you! It’s my favorite of my characters to play. Always looking for new information to help me play them better.
Love a practical application of linguistics concepts! - Dr. B
If you play it online I’d love to join your group.
@@christinamoriarty6989 I do but unfortunately the party is full. My gm would not allow another.
Makes me think of every time I scrutinise a dodgy email or message to work out if it's a scam.
Me too! After all, there is such as thing as "scammer grammar" (but to be fair, poor grammar could just as well be used by a non-native speaker or someone who is not linguistically inclined).
@@kenster8270 However, scam emails often claim to be from formal institutions (a bank, the IRS, the UN, or whatever) that should be expected to be able to write in grammatical English.
@@kenster8270 from what I've heard, scammers use these mistakes to filter out those who wouldn't be easy to trick. If you don't notice the problem, then you're their target. Not sure how true that is, but it seems about right.
I read with a suspicious eye myself.
Hey, wait, no one told me I'd get a badge if I finish my doctoral thesis.
What do you mean? , is this referring to the badge tht she held , when she said PhD
Here's an interesting fact: Mark Williams one of the co-creators of the popular 90's toy Tickle Me Elmo was investigated by the FBI for months because they believed him to be one of the suspects behind the Unabomber.
💀
“believed to be one of the suspects behind the Unabomber” … interesting ideolect 🤔
"Elmo says you're going to burn in hell! Hahaha!"
*dramatic explosions*
This makes so much sense! I always had stories swirling around my head, and thought to never put them down because I “failed” at writing. I did get an C- in writing class and nearly failed. Whatever! My friends loved my spoken stories and wondered why I never wrote them down. Turns out I just have a writing style that most english teachers either loved or hated. Simple vocabulary yet detailed sentences. Using “and” every time I could. Switching between 1-3 words phases and very long soliloquies. And, putting a character quote right in the middle of the action.
can you give an example?
So glad you didn't let them sway you in the end, I had an english teacher tell me a similar thing, that my writing style was literally 'wrong' because I tend to write in a 'passive style' rather than an 'active style,' and that's dumb to say a style is invalid because it's not a style they prefer.
What does that have to do with the video? 😂
@@anordinarylymphocyte611 “Ha. Ha. Ha.” The man looked around. Yet, all he could see was a dead hallway. Dripping wet. Cold and dark. He tried to listen for the treat, but his sharp breaths were too loud. He turned and, “AAG!” Sharp pain filled his shoulders. Needle-like claws pierced him. It was here. The faceless one. He felt wet. His shirt, red. The mindless beast of his nightmare has won, and more and more claws outta nowhere dug in his chest. He dropped. His new eyes opened. And he was reborn. His sharp, quick, and loud breaths became deep, long, and quiet.
I'm curious to read your stories now! I'm glad you saw their value and I hope you still write them.
i love how badass it sounds! i’m a linguistics student (one year until graduation!) and i’m either inclined to pursue forensic linguistics or language therapy after i get my degree. sadly, as a spanish speaker, the world of forensic linguistics is still underdeveloped. my best shot would be to move to spain and idk about that, but it’s so interesting! i love how it’s a discipline that uses everything, from sociolinguistics to phonetics (that’s maybe one thing that wasn’t fully explored in the video: it’s not only written stuff! we also study accents, and prosody).
Same for me, but it's my 2nd year😂
Hello! I am considering majoring in linguistics and your comment piqued my interest-- if you don't mind me asking, how common are jobs in forensic linguistics? (I'm super interested in it and in similar fields, but am held back by utilitarianism lol)
ohhh im spanish considering doing forensic linguistics as a masters!!
@@abriewren3013hey! sorry for the late reply!
idk if i’d use the word “common”, and the amount of work you’ll find in the field will vary greatly depending on where you’re living, but i would dare say that forensic linguistics are decently payed because there aren’t as many people prepared to do the job as they should (again, depending on where you live). it can be an important part of a lot of investigations of many kinds, from a serious crime to fraud to a stalker or even a simple lawsuit, so it’s a very versatile path. another field where i feel like forensic linguistics will be needed is artificial intelligence (take this with a grain of salt since these are my own hypotheses). although linguists are needed already to some extent when it comes to the development of language models, i mean that forensic linguists may probably be needed to verify someone’s authorship, specially since AI is getting better at emulating human language and AI detectors are terrible. also, these detectors may be good to tell if something was AI-made (in the future, certainly not right now), but that doesn’t mean that they’ll be able to tell which human wrote it. humans detect human things, after all.
anyway, i got rambling lol. my point is that i do believe that forensic linguistics is one of the most pragmatic areas of linguistics. if your utilitarianism compels you to look for this kind of things, i do think this is a very viable path.
@@martasgreatlibraryohhh, ¡holaa! qué cool, ¿cuánto te falta para graduarte?
yo lo he pensado porque me sí interesa, pero me la pienso mucho porque implica brincar el charco y eso sale muy caro jajajaja. aquí en méxico todo está en pañales, la verdad, lo que hace que el trabajo sea mejor pagado, pero dificulta mucho más la formación en el área. no sé qué voy a hacer y me preocupa más mientras más se acerca mi graduación :/
So, when we do our PHDs, do we all get the badge? Love this series!
If you do yours in Sweden, you get a really cool hat. 🤷♀️ The woman who makes them is both a master hatmaker, and a master milliner.
What's a milliner? @@Mhidraum
@@lucidtofu a quick google search says that a milliner is "a person who makes or sells women's hats."
@@lucidtofulooks like milliner and hatmaker mean the same thing, but then again I only typed "milliner" in the yt search bar, so not the most extensive research
Outstanding and educational video, as always!
ETA: Forensic Linguist would be an incredible job! I wish I had known it existed as a career in my more formative years.
Same
Same!!
I mean, with my language skills and my INTJ ability to pick up and zoom in on nuance, I think I'd be pretty good at it
"smooth move, Ted" 😂
Sold by the vibes of this video. Time to learn more about linguistic sleuthing
We need an ITV crime drama about a linguistics expert solving crimes based off of notes and letters sent by the culprit
Kind of like Lie to Me, which also took a different approach (micro-movements) to solving crimes.
Not an ITV drama but there was a historical crime show called "The Bletchley Circle" that has a similar plot. A group of ex-codebreakers from WWII solved crimes in 1950s London using linguistics. Season 2 was set in 1960s San Francisco and had a similar plot.
@@erinlee5936I remember that! It was wonderful!
Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
I wish they actually give us PhD badges at graduation ceremonies so we can flash it on occasions like this. 🤣
I'm super thankful for Dr. Brozovsky, Mr. Matthews, Ms. Graham, Ms. Fox and Ms. McGreevy and all of the unnamed that helped and helps push this series through. Now I have this, Space Time and Deep Look by PBS to keep me busy trying to understand what I've just learned!
I'm a linguistics student and took a class on forensic linguistics. I think this video does the topic justice in just how interesting and fun of a field it is
which uni? im trying to find a forensic linguistics uni to apply to
Forensic Linguist seems SOOOO fun!!!
a degree that sound's like a waste of time
Yeah, I’ve noticed that unless I just happen to remember something word by word, whenever I try to retell what somebody told me, I automatically “translate” it into my own style of talking, making it sound like all the people I meet are mini-mes 😅
AI doesn't scare me. Human ignorance does. We never know what variables we're forgetting to account for when programming AI...and we never know what someone else might manipulate its code to do.
Exactly
The results are often clearly biased, showing the biases the programmer labour under.
It's also scary that algorithms can mimic human biases present in the training materials, so if anything I'd expect AI to be more racist and biased against victims. We need to be very smart and empathetic when deciding on these things if we want a non horrible future.
G.I.G.O.
now i want a Linguistics, Ph.D. badge
As someone who likes to learn languages and enjoys detective genre, I never knew Forensic Linguistics is a thing. Somebody needs to make a film about it, I will gladly watch it!
That guy who "confessed" to murders he didn't commit is good proof of why you should never talk to the cops without your lawyer present. The cops just want to be seen to be solving cases, they don't care if they've actually solved the case or not. They don't care if you're innocent or guilty. They will lie to you, manipulate you, even put you through psychological torture for hours. The most common form of this is just keeping you in the interrogation room and talking with you, deliberately messing with your head (to the best of their ability) with their questions and twisting your words and wearing you down until you start telling them what you think they want to hear.
And cops are not very bright, either. That isn't just a dig, it's factually correct. With American cops at least, there's an *upper* IQ limit, and it's not much higher than average. It is very easy to be too smart to be a cop. And judging by my observations and experiences, it is also very difficult to be too *stupid* to be allowed to be a cop.
Well I agree with much of what you say. You should always have a lawyer present for any kind of police questioning.
However, sometimes it's not just a case of police simply wanting to close cases and get someone charged quickly. Sometimes I believe biases and prejudices come into play - such as what happened to American student Amanda Knox in Italy, a foreigner and "wild American girl", and the case being handled by smalltown police who had little experience handling such cases, with the crime scene not properly sealed, evidence misplaced or contaminated etc. Tunnel vision can lead to police only investigating one person, far too early in the investigation, and not looking into all the other possible scenarios. And then, trying to make the evidence and information fit their theory of the crime.
However, I would have thought that F.B.I. agents and so on, would be of a certain level of intelligence, especially the higher up you go.
I am sorry but the real prejudice is when one believes in the 'American girl''s victimisation. Mistakes happened, but not because of her nationality.
There was a trial which acknowledged the problem of evidence tampering, and this doesn't prove that Amanda is totally innocent, but it certainly proves that she didn't deserve to be convicted.
It was not only Amanda who was convicted and acquitted, but also her then ITALIAN boyfriend.
The person killed was also a foreigner.
And Miss Amanda Knox had the courage to falsely accuse an Ivorian who wasn't really involved, and she was therefore convicted.
If you think she's not a wild girl, you still have to wonder why she would associate with such people. But yes, she's good on let the world knowing her point of view, also because she's from USA, that's for sure… @@SY-ok2dq
@@giovannimoriggi5833 Knox did not associate with Guede. She met and started a relationship with Sollecito, who was a perfectly respectable university student, from a normal, educated, professional family. He had no record or anything unlike Guede.
It was the Italian men who lived downstairs in Knox's building who met Guede, through basketball games. They were the ones who first brought Guede to the building, to their basement apartment. They described how they had found Guede sitting asleep on their toilet, which contained poop as it had not been flushed. In one of the other break-ins, a toilet had been used, but had not been flushed. And this was the case in Kercher and Knox's apartment. There was an obvious and clear pattern to Guede's criminal behavior.
Kercher and Knox only met Guede once because of the Italian men who lived downstairs. Knox AND Kercher were friendly with the men downstairs - they were their neighbors obviously. And it was those men who invited Guede, allowing him to know about the building, the tenants including Kercher and Knox, and something of the layout and interiors of the building. Knox never chose to hang out with Guede. Amd neither did Kercher.
But there's no mistake related to any prejudice to any American girl, I'm sorry but it need to be reminded. Europe is better than you think.@@SY-ok2dq
Sad fact about that case: Evans wasn’t exhonorated for the crimes he ”commited” until 2004. In fact, after Christie was arrested and hanged, the government held an inquiry about the case and came to the conclusion that ”nope, the police where right. These two men both murdered women in the exact same way and hid the bodies in the exact same way completely independent from each other.” Then the same government held a SECOND inquiry that concluded that the first one was correct.
Oh, and Christie? He was a former police officer.
Oh, this is FASCINATING! And it makes so much sense! I would love to do something like this!
It's reminding me that one of the New York Times advice columns recently had a question from someone claiming to be a teen. There was a comment doubting that teens would use phrases like "stoked" and "rock star," so clearly the letter was fake. But then multiple replies from people who work with teens (including me!) saying, nah, that sounded completely normal to us. Forensic linguistics! 😂
I already had a lot of respect for linguists before watching this episode, now I've got even more! Thank you Dr. Brozovsky and the whole Otherwords team!
Maybe if someone had suggested linguistic forensics as a potential career choice when I was a language student, my life and career would be much different now... the subject sounds fascinating
Just stumbled across Otherwords and am obsessed!
Best episode of Otherwords so far, period!
I didn't know about how long Ted Kazinzsky was able to operate until caught. 20 years! Caught by his own brother as well. I guess the Algorithm will find 95% of my comments are SciFi/Fantasy and Science Nerd subjects! 🤣🤣. I always look forward to the next video. Thanks so much! 🤘☺️🖖🇨🇦🕊️
I remember I was in grad school the year he was caught. It was a.popular Halloween costume that year in Madison, tied with the California raisins for simplicity and recognizability
@@LindaC616 yo, I was not expecting the last part of that at _all_ 😂
@@becauseimafan easy costume seekers had two roads to choose from....some went down the dark path 😄
This is a really fun episode, never thought that deeply about linguistics in terms of true crime but really interesting to think about (makes me conscious of my own writing style now too lol)
This episode was so sick, I'd wanna see more of this type of content!
Welcome back, Dr. Brozovsky. I was suffering from withdrawal.
My favorite PBS programme
yooo we got the unabomber episode on the otherwords series. This has to be one of the most ambitious crossover event in history. Let's goo.
Thinking about this uniqueness in the context of AI text generators that steal and remix phrases from a lot of sources kind of blows my mind. Maybe a follow up episode someday??
Holy cow, never thought that the language we use could reveal so much about ourselves. A very interesting and thought provoking video. Thanks for sharing 🙌
Fascinating topic, excellent presentation, raincoat shows hole in roof has not been fixed.
This is the perfect episode to leave the outtakes in the video. Spotting unique verbal linguistic quirks would give great insight into the presenter...
Or just make a fun video.
Most dreadfully interesting, Dr B. Thanks much!
If it is within your forte, please consider discussing handwriting analysis.
Junk science
Dreadfully interesting! Fantastic way of putting it lol.
Loved this episode!
It's so sad for the innocent father and husband who spent time in jail and was hanged
That's a clear case against capital punishment
the saddest thing is he trusted christie to look after his wife, trusted him to help her have a safe abortion because they were too poor to look after a child
Wow, just when I think you guys cant come up with another video on linguistics, you release yet another banger! Love this show.
More of this please 🥺
Hello Dr. Brozovsky, would you kindly make a video about how onomaetopia came into heing, and how it shapes modern English as we know it?
"Onomatopoeia" is a very hard word to spell. (It is sometimes spelled "onomatopeia" or "onomatopœia.")🙂
And those algorithms are why I never post on social media or do things like comment on random TH-cam videos.
...
Wait.
No!
Made me think.
..I'm off....
Awesome video, your best yet, its has always been my favorite thing about English literature is just pulling apart words and phrases to learn about their origins. Reading anything from the mid to late 19th century really shows a massive diversity of English spellings and meaning.
I love Otherwords so much that I don't even read the title before clicking anymore.
So well produced and so interesting. I especially found the three letters from “Jack the Ripper” historically fascinating. Thank you so much, PBS :) 🌷🌱
Nice, I've been waiting for another Otherwords episode!
LOVED THIS ! 2 of my favorite subjects all in one!!!!
This video was absolutely fantastic I never knew that forensic linguistics was so cool.
I absolutely love the content that “other words” puts out! Huge fan
Very interesting. It shows that the study of language is essential for understanding everything to do with human thought and behaviour... and possibly for discovering the true meaning of life. No wonder Wiittgenstein gave it such a central role in his philosophical investigations.
“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.”
New favorite channel. 💜
If I could subscribe to only Otherwords I would. I don't want the other content and have to periodically check to see when there is a new episode. It's always great when there is. I love Dr. B's presentations.
Understandable! Dr. B is great. But I think it makes sense that they combined several shows on one channel; they're related and I'm sure it helps PBS limit resources. If you haven't, though, give the other shows a shot! I really enjoy both Monstrum and Fate & Fabled, but I do admit that my degree involved mythology, so I'm biased, lol. But Dr. Z is also a great presenter. She's more toned down than Dr. B, but definitely very knowledgeable and passionate about her subjects!
Very neat. I've been into this for a few years now, and I still learned a few neat things here.
One of the most brilliant narrators I've ever listened to!
its been toooo long since the last otherwords, please keep 'em coming :)
Ohhh!!!! This would be nice as a series
Her channel is one of my favourite TH-cam channels. Thanks for making these entertaining and informative videos.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again. I can’t get enough of your 70’s/Pink Panther/Inspector intro to your videos.
Makes it very easy to spot scammers!
It's cool to know this exists, I can always tell when I wrote something because of grammar quirks and word choices in either of my languages, it's interesting that this has a broader application though
Fascinating! I had no idea this was such a well-developed field of study.
This video took me forever to finish because at 4:56 I had to pause and look up Subcomandante Marcos. Wow. Definitely checking out his book.
So happy to get another installment of Otherwords. 😊
I’ve never been excited by a topic more.
This explains why I can pick out my friends in anonymous chat forums despite their lack of usernames. We all do it consistently.
Few videos have ever gotten m3 to click on them so fast- but this is such a cool combination of so many of my interests, as both a word nerd and a true crime fanatic turned criminal lawyer. Great job!
Very fascinating🤯
Another great episode!
This is absolutly fascinating.
Great as usual, Dr. B.!!! Thanx!!!
Fascinating thank you. Language is very interesting and the delivery, use or teaching of it fascinating. And in a world full of options the softness and hardness, newness or oldness, elegance or crassness of it gives society and the choice on what to build it on great value.
My issue with this methodology is that it's not too hard to mimic style (or idiolect).
It's also not too hard to work on one's way of expressing oneself. When I was young, I remember doing it after wondering why my reddit posts weren't popular. It was very sudden. Shorter sentences, more adverbs, more doubt and ambiguous grammar (a more "casual" style in general).
Fantastic. What a great surprise to find. I just tapped ‘New to you’….and voila, this wonderful series.
YOUR UNDER ARREST for stealing my heart LOL
I got to learn so much about myself through this video...
This is insane.
Idiolects and sociolects are part of Spanish language education programs. I remember studying them when I was 10 years old.
How amazed I am to find a new area to do crazy researches on 😮❤
The number of tests and quizzes I've taken where my teachers phrase incorrect answers so differently from correct ones that I can accurately guess is kinda sad. Like, I can tell the answer is A, because B through E average five words, and A is two complete sentences with an absurd amount of detail. If I can answer without knowing the answer, what's the point of a test?
Great video as always. Keep up the good work!
Damn! I couldn't get away with anything.
I stop whatever I am doing when I discover an episode of Otherwords has been posted.
Kudos to everyone's favorite host, and also to the writer, the producer, and the other worker bees listed in the credits.
Part of my previous job was determining if emails sent to my employer were complaints or not. This is not as easy as you think. We have to scrutinize the words used and if the email was in response to an action my employer had taken towards them. It's extra difficult if the email is not from an English speaker writing in broken English. Of course all of this is meant to teach an AI to do this job in the future and help sort the emails.
I first heard of forensic linguistics in a Kathy Reichs novel. The greater patterns (pop vs soda, etc) are fascinating to me.
it's.important to note that despite Svartvik's analysis coming *after* a serial killer was found in the same house as Evans, and despite the additional evidence from said analysis, the government took until 1965 to admit they were wrong and pardon Evans posthumously.
This show is the reason I´m taking a bachelor in lingual science
I did not know there was a word for our unique way of speaking but I knew we all had one. I try to be aware of this when I leave comments and post to twitter. I want to change up my speech so that I do not get stuck to some pattern that i am unaware of
So neat! Spoken encryption! 😱
The Greek philosopher Hero-Cletus. 😂😂😂
I LOVE THIS !
I know my son's texting to where I can tell whether my son wrote it or someone else... it's the "tone" of his text that screams at me....
you look so cool in your detective outfit! and of course great episode as usual!!
I mean, he also just went to the post office in person to mail the bombs. People talk about how smart Ted was, but he'd have never mailed a 2nd bomb nowadays. And it's likely the first one would have been detected prior to delivery.
Detective Brozovsky on the case!
So basically if the Unabomber had ChatGPT write his manifesto and letters, he'd still be free. (And much less understood, but you know, trade-offs).
I wonder if forensic linguists can tell the difference between different LLMs.
I remember that Unabomber wanted poster from when I was a kid. I used to always look at the wanted posters in the post office.
One thing that AI would definitely fail to take into account would be the emotional context in which something was written. Because I know that I write differently when I’m upset.
Not that humans always consider context either, but at least the option would still be there
Favorite episode so far
Now I'm scared to have my essays reviewed by a forensic linguistics.
What a brilliant episode! Semantics and language are hella fascinating!
Beautiful video
I always felt that idiolect existed and linguistics is used criminal investigations
That's why i tend to write differently online with my pseudo online profiles
Really enjoyed this episode. Thanks for including so many references for further reading!