Culture Study Podcast - Code-switching and Cussing (with Audie Cornish and Ari Shapiro!!)

00:00:00.000 Can I tell you a really formative experience I had that shaped my view of this?

00:00:03.480 Yeah.

00:00:03.660 At the beginning of my career, I worked the overnight shift on Morning Edition as an editorial assistant, and one of my jobs was to go through the listener email inbox.

00:00:12.500 So I saw everything that listeners were writing in about what they loved and hated, most often hated, and I would forward all of those messages to all the reporters that they were writing about so that by the time I became a reporter and started getting hate mail of my own addressed to me.

00:00:29.240 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:00:30.120 I felt like, oh, I've arrived.

00:00:33.220 This is what happens when you're a professional

00:00:36.340 and now it's happening to me

00:00:37.880 and that means I've made it.

00:00:46.640 This is the Culture Study Podcast

00:00:48.200 and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.

00:00:50.120 And I'm Audie Cornish.

00:00:51.960 I am a news anchor at CNN.

00:00:55.300 I used to be at NPR

00:00:56.360 and now I have a podcast with my friend.

00:00:58.600 Ari Shapiro. We are the co-hosts of the podcast Engagement Party. We've also been friends for

00:01:04.040 like more than 20 years. And we spent years together as hosts on NPR's All Things Considered.

00:01:09.360 So we've got some history. Anyone who is a longtime NPR listener, I think, here's your

00:01:14.540 voices or here's your names and thinks serious people. And I remember this is like this is a

00:01:24.340 throwback, but there was a piece that was published. I think it was in The Washington Post.

00:01:28.140 I could be wrong, but it was essentially about like the style of the NPR host.

00:01:33.560 Do you remember this, this feature?

00:01:35.140 It made the rounds like all over Twitter and everyone was just like screenshotting pictures to say, like, can you believe that?

00:01:45.840 Well, first of all, I think the amazement was just that you that like hosts had bodies.

00:01:50.360 Right.

00:01:51.180 Oh, yeah.

00:01:53.420 Right.

00:01:54.260 And then some of it was like, oh, my gosh, so stylish, like Nina Totenberg, Queen, right?

00:01:59.520 And then some of it, too. 0.72

00:02:01.860 I think this is sublimated, but some of it was like, these aren't the bodies that I was expecting.

00:02:08.540 For sure. 0.74

00:02:09.520 And they mean it racially.

00:02:10.920 They meant it in terms of, like, how people presented themselves in other ways.

00:02:15.860 But, like, that was what I think was going on.

00:02:18.000 And to me, this really points to the fact that our voices do so much work and how people

00:02:23.240 understand us.

00:02:26.080 So since you've both left NPR, I know you've talked about this before.

00:02:30.560 This is part of the reason we're doing this episode.

00:02:32.120 It's this little snippet I heard of you on Kara Swisher's podcast.

00:02:35.980 How have you reconsidered the way that you present yourself or has it been conscious?

00:02:43.740 There's so much in there.

00:02:45.180 I know.

00:02:45.920 No, Ari, you should go first because you're newer.

00:02:50.640 Well, I mean, I kind of want to start with the idea of the NPR voice and what it is before we get to moving away from that voice.

00:02:58.340 There was somebody who I really adore who did a lot of training with reporters and hosts who said, when you're on the radio for NPR, you should sound like yourself when you've had the exact right amount of sleep and the exact right amount of caffeine.

00:03:15.920 not like Walter Cronkite, not like Susan Stamberg, not like Robert Siegel, like yourself when you

00:03:24.600 are exactly the right amount of caffeinated and rested. Somebody else once said you should

00:03:28.580 imagine you're talking to somebody sitting six feet away because if the person is one foot away,

00:03:33.020 you're going to talk to them like this. And if the person is across the room, you're going to

00:03:36.140 shout at them. So like there are all these things that you keep in mind, but basically you want to

00:03:40.100 be your most quote unquote authentic self. But that raises the question, what is the authentic

00:03:45.480 self? What is authenticity? I am often told by people I meet out on the town at a nightlife

00:03:53.000 venue, you sound gayer in person than you do on the radio. People have also occasionally said

00:04:00.460 things that make me think, oh, they imagined me having a potbelly Birkenstocks before they were

00:04:06.780 cool and facial hair before facial hair was a thing that every gay man in middle age had.

00:04:11.460 I have neither facial hair, nor Birkenstocks, nor a pot belly. So yeah, people imagine NPR

00:04:18.300 reporters and hosts based not only on what they hear on the radio, but on their stereotype of

00:04:23.300 what NPR is. And since moving away from NPR into this show engagement party that Audie and I do,

00:04:30.640 we have tried to be the selves that we were with each other when the microphones were off at NPR.

00:04:37.180 Right.

00:04:37.340 Is that our, quote unquote, most authentic selves?

00:04:39.900 I don't know what most authentic self really means.

00:04:42.240 I think Audie on CNN, she can speak to this, is different from Audie on NPR, is different from Audie on Engagement Party.

00:04:48.320 But I try to be Audie's friend, who I've been for 20 years, when we're kibitzing and dishing about things and making each other laugh and finishing each other's sentences.

00:04:57.500 He's so good at this.

00:04:59.420 I know.

00:05:00.060 Don't you think?

00:05:00.780 He's so good at this.

00:05:01.940 I mean, you know, as is known, I had a rocky transition where leaving radio and I say radio on purpose because I feel like NPR, while it made a digital transition and became, you know, something that made content, it still felt very much like radio when I was doing it.

00:05:22.520 And then all of a sudden I was going to TV and I use that word on purpose because they were in the middle of trying to have a digital transformation as well.

00:05:31.000 Right. You know, and in this maelstrom, I'm out of the age group that already has the answer. Right.

00:05:38.080 I was not raised doing like TikTok dances, you know, those dances, the way they're like only up here to the shoulder because they're completely designed pinky up like to be in a screen this small.

00:05:50.720 And so, and I didn't, I didn't have a plan for what I would look like. I had had a baby, my second coming out of the pandemic. And so, you know, as a woman, I think there's a lot of like, I'm going to dress a certain way when I'm a certain weight. And when I look a certain way and my face is doing this and like, none of that was happening.

00:06:11.980 it's just like you weigh more your hair shorter you're older you know it just felt like what am

00:06:17.920 I even doing on purpose trying to be on camera like it is the ultimate insanity to do this in

00:06:24.880 the age of the Kardashian like who do you think you are you know I really just right it's like

00:06:31.220 oh you're getting older and now you have to do more yeah because you can't pull an ingenue right

00:06:36.440 like I do think no trust he already doesn't know this because he's like Anderson he looks young 0.58

00:06:41.460 forever but for women when you're really young in journalism they sort of trust you up to make

00:06:46.720 you look older and they pay you less than the man you're sitting next to and it also i i mean i'm

00:06:52.600 only saying this now that i'm miss personality i also think it fulfills some sort of like wish

00:06:57.560 fulfillment for the people who watch and think that's what i would look like in my imagined 0.84

00:07:04.500 couple right like me a man looking the way i look but then an extremely hot young woman sitting

00:07:11.280 next to me telling me that I'm saying smart things like that in so many ways is the model

00:07:17.480 when you look up at a screen for cable news and I was just like I mean girl what am I going to do

00:07:23.280 there you know and I had to one get over myself my own vanity my own fears my own narcissism

00:07:30.940 frankly and and then try and figure out what it meant to be me because I mean this is different

00:07:40.100 for Ari, but I, in a lot of ways, was cosplaying. I was one of the youngest hosts they had ever had

00:07:47.220 in NPR on these major shows. And the people I was following were nothing like me. You know,

00:07:53.340 I didn't grow up in New York. I didn't read The New Yorker. I didn't read The Economist. I didn't

00:07:57.760 speak French. I went to state school. There was just nothing I had in common except maybe the

00:08:03.720 voice except maybe this kind of lack of accent that in america reads as broadcast quality right

00:08:10.920 for me it was just like you're just a third a sort of what's the term um third culture third

00:08:18.980 culture yeah you don't get your local accent you don't have the accent your parents have you don't

00:08:24.360 you just you're in between and for some reason though i was able to monetize that right and by

00:08:30.440 using my voice, even though my voice had been the thing that had made me an outsider culturally

00:08:37.040 and socially as a kid. So to your point, the strangest transition was realizing that being

00:08:45.700 on camera would force me to be more of myself than I was when I was off camera and pretending

00:08:54.880 to sound a certain way to be perceived a certain way and the camera doesn't lie it's very very

00:09:03.460 odd i had to figure that out the hard way people were like you have no freaking poker face like we

00:09:08.500 can they're like we can see you're on a political panel we can see everything you're thinking just

00:09:13.320 so you know and anderson had told me this anderson cooper and i was like he was like it's a very

00:09:17.640 intimate medium i'm like this guy he's been drinking the kool-aid too long he's right

00:09:21.640 everything you think it plays across your face unless you're very good at hiding it which i am

00:09:28.080 not so i all of this to say is like i've arrived at this place after it was like a journey you know

00:09:35.200 it was a real journey and a real reality check about who i had been in public and um what it

00:09:43.840 meant to perform that's the word i've wrestled with more than authenticity or not authenticity

00:09:49.160 the culture study podcast is sponsored by blueland so where i live on the island we have septic

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00:13:34.640 So the subject of this podcast is code switching, which I think some people,

00:13:39.960 the connotation really is about like code switching yourself to make yourself more amenable

00:13:44.800 to a more dominant culture in whatever form that might take. But the term really is very expansive.

00:13:51.520 code switching can be about what you talk about in the office versus what you talk about with

00:13:57.680 your friends yeah it's become more expansive it didn't start out as expansive academically

00:14:02.000 it didn't have such expansive roots but yeah now much more dialectically right like much more

00:14:08.080 dialectically like how you flatten your accent how you do all these things but like just the

00:14:13.320 different self-presentation that we do all the time right um and is there any other way besides

00:14:20.240 just our voices right things that you have noted in yourself that you code switch on

00:14:26.800 a regular basis besides our voices yeah i mean i think the way we dress says so much about us

00:14:35.420 which you know for the four years that i was a white house correspondent i wore a suit and tie

00:14:39.900 to work every day wow i didn't realize how much you wore suits until we started doing this show

00:14:45.320 together like I obviously I had seen you in a social context but I think in my head I was like

00:14:51.160 we're at work then we're not at work but like yeah I didn't realize how much of your work life

00:14:56.820 you really did spend like pretty trussed up and as a host of all things considered I started

00:15:04.060 wearing a jacket and tie to work most days and I was in that seat for 10 years and by the end of

00:15:09.160 the 10 years I was yeah I haven't worn a tie to work in forever because as the culture changes

00:15:14.380 you try to adapt with it and you don't want to be the dinosaur dressing for the office of 1990

00:15:19.620 whatever you know or the early 2000s um so when you ask how do we code switch besides like audio

00:15:26.460 vocal the words we use and the way we use them to me the biggest thing that comes to mind is how we

00:15:31.420 dress and audie and i have talked about for engagement party what do we want to wear how do

00:15:35.500 we want to look because it's a youtube show in addition to being a podcast and we did our first

00:15:40.200 photo shoot with like I was wearing a suit and a white shirt and no tie. And I have we we wore those

00:15:46.980 outfits for the first episode. And then we both kind of said to each other, yeah, no, this isn't

00:15:51.860 it. This is this is not the way this show looks. Right. Well, and did you find yourself interacting

00:15:57.460 more formally because you were wearing more formal? Oh, I think what we wear changes the way

00:16:03.060 we carry ourselves in addition, like anyone who speaks multiple languages knows that when you

00:16:09.480 are speaking one language different aspects of your personality come to the fore as opposed to

00:16:15.680 the other language that has something to do with the culture that that language comes from and in

00:16:20.260 the same way I think what you wear shapes the way you act whether that is being physically restrained

00:16:27.580 by something that is very structured versus very loose or if it's about having layers I mean you

00:16:33.140 know master theses have been written about this kind of thing yeah well for us Ari's like loosey

00:16:38.940 goosey now he's like t-shirts swearing all this thing and you know to your point and helena i'm

00:16:46.500 wearing um still a suit i like still found a way to be buttoned up and i i just started wearing

00:16:55.600 these like bomber jackets and like but it's it's basically me being like i'm still in costume like

00:17:03.700 There's still part of me that I withhold and I feel I feel more comfortable and more prepared in a costume that is appropriate to the venue.

00:17:17.020 I'm like very affected by.

00:17:19.320 But you come from hosting the 6 a.m. TV show to taping the podcast a few hours later in the morning and you're not wearing what you wear on TV.

00:17:27.900 But that's what I mean. Psychologically, I have to go into the phone booth and change.

00:17:31.380 I have to go and be like, okay, now it's fun time, you know?

00:17:35.940 And so it's like polka dots.

00:17:37.460 Like I have to do that for myself even,

00:17:41.000 which is not the same as code switching.

00:17:42.700 I'm sorry, but I just was interested in Ari's thesis

00:17:44.980 about like how we deal with each other,

00:17:47.820 how we turn it into engagement party, right?

00:17:50.120 In the middle of the day when we're taping it.

00:17:53.540 Do you feel like you still have to perform authority

00:17:55.780 in a lot of cases?

00:17:57.920 I often perform curiosity more than authority.

00:18:00.720 Yeah.

00:18:01.380 You think it's because you're a man?

00:18:04.180 Maybe, but I think every good host of a show,

00:18:06.940 whether it's a podcast or a TV show,

00:18:09.820 has authentic curiosity and things that they really want to know about.

00:18:13.580 And there are times you have to be able to say,

00:18:15.420 this is what's happening and I'm giving you the information.

00:18:18.300 But the more engaging times to me are the times

00:18:20.560 you're actually genuinely inquisitive.

00:18:23.240 And I don't think that's gendered.

00:18:26.620 How people respond to it is. 0.99

00:18:29.540 For sure.

00:18:30.700 Yeah.

00:18:30.840 I mean, I think we experienced that at the pitch table way back when.

00:18:36.420 I did have a coach.

00:18:38.140 I asked for a coach because I was like, TV, help.

00:18:40.280 I don't understand this.

00:18:42.380 And the coach was one day he was just like, listen, I'm trying to give you tips and stuff, but you actually don't need any.

00:18:49.920 He's like, what I need you to do is be yourself and stop being worried about conveying authority.

00:18:55.580 He's like, it's done.

00:18:57.220 It's baked in.

00:18:59.180 You're old enough now.

00:19:00.600 You know, like people have been with you long enough that you need to stop trying to preserve that because that's it.

00:19:10.180 They assume it. And that actually makes you more free to be yourself.

00:19:14.740 And that was probably the single biggest, most helpful piece of advice that I got from him.

00:19:18.580 I got many other pieces of advice. His name is Barry Nash. Check out his sub stack.

00:19:23.760 He is an ex theater guy who just helps people figure out like how to do this stuff.

00:19:28.940 and it helped tremendously i stopped trying to prove because i i just was very used to feeling

00:19:36.400 like am i the dumbest person here like i was joking with ari that like i was the bimbo of npr

00:19:42.180 really no i always thought you were like to me no no no there it's basically like have you been 0.95

00:19:48.540 to iran lately well i'm sorry you're doing the lighter beats you know what i mean like it was

00:19:54.460 very hierarchical of smarts right like old school yeah yeah yeah having named your coach i want to

00:20:04.120 just say the great advice i gave before came from jonathan kern and i regret not giving him the

00:20:08.540 credit in the moment so let me just give him a shout out yeah well and i love like even just

00:20:13.260 the idea of a coach because what they do is they make a lot of these things very explicit

00:20:19.360 it right these things that either people don't realize that they're doing and do all the time

00:20:24.800 or in you trying to perform let's say authority for a television audience they're like here are

00:20:30.920 the ways if there wasn't if they didn't have the automatic authority like you Adi like here are the

00:20:36.220 ways that you can perform it saying out loud you stand up straight you do like here's how you begin

00:20:41.880 a sentence like all of these things and there were habits I had from radio that didn't work on tv

00:20:48.720 And then there's habits that I use on TV that now when I'm back doing the podcast with you, Ari, I'm like, OK, dial it back.

00:20:54.520 Like there's just there's code switching there and abandoning them both and being like, wait, this is online.

00:21:02.500 Like I need to like there's aspects of way I dress the camera for engagement party that have to do with to me, like really being engaged with your audience online because they're looking at it this close.

00:21:15.900 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:16.480 So, yeah, I probably overthink it all because I'm really obsessed with like format and presentation and the sort of science of presentation.

00:21:26.420 Because you're a pro.

00:21:27.760 No, no, I'm anxious.

00:21:29.560 You know how it is.

00:21:30.540 You've talked about it.

00:21:31.360 This is how you burn out, right?

00:21:32.680 Like if you're kind of a perfectionist, it's never, ever, ever good enough.

00:21:38.100 And I'm always the one in the meeting that's like, that was really great.

00:21:41.380 So listen, I have some feedback like because I'm I'm like putting this lens on everyone else.

00:21:47.820 I feel terrible. But yeah, you can't help it.

00:21:50.720 And it does feel like I love craft.

00:21:54.760 You know, I like to hear authors talk about how they write.

00:21:57.200 I like to hear actors really talk about what they do, what they do.

00:22:00.500 And, you know, it turns out, podcasters, interviewing is a craft. 0.90

00:22:06.840 And I hear a lot of shitty interviewing happening. 0.92

00:22:10.780 Oh, thank God. 0.96

00:22:11.440 You finally swore.

00:22:12.580 I know.

00:22:12.840 I thought it would never happen.

00:22:14.040 That's how you know I feel strongly.

00:22:15.900 I hear not great interviewing happening in the podcast space.

00:22:20.320 You didn't need to discourage it.

00:22:21.220 Come on, Audie.

00:22:22.220 That had better make the edit. 1.00

00:22:23.540 We are keeping that shitty in there.

00:22:24.060 If that is not in the edit, I am going to storm off this podcast.

00:22:27.320 Anyway, because it turns out it's actually, there's work to be done to create a narrative

00:22:33.660 and a conversation over the course of half an hour with a beginning, middle, and end.

00:22:37.760 well and when people make it look like it's easy they're oftentimes doing a lot of work right if

00:22:46.320 the interview seems seamless just so chatty comfortable it's a lot of work I think that's

00:22:51.660 why comedians did so well so early in the world of it because they were used to standing on a

00:22:57.760 stage by themselves and creating a beginning middle and end out of what seemed like random

00:23:03.860 dialogue and I it's not that now but like I don't think that was an accident but to Adi's point

00:23:11.700 about it being a craft a great interview looks very different depending on who's doing it and

00:23:16.100 she and I both have many many years of interviews under our belt but the thing that's new is that

00:23:20.460 an engagement party for the first time in our lives we're interviewing people together and we're

00:23:25.760 figuring out what that feels like and what that looks like and it's sort of like what do you get

00:23:30.360 when you do the like soft serve swirl

00:23:33.060 of Audie's interview style and my interview style.

00:23:35.440 Yeah, because we're used to parallel play.

00:23:37.400 We're used to competition.

00:23:39.560 I mean, it's very, we've done it though.

00:23:41.580 I have to say, I've been pleasantly surprised.

00:23:43.880 I've loved, honestly, doing an interview with you

00:23:47.560 is so like easy and relaxing and fun

00:23:52.360 because I feel like our history as friends,

00:23:54.860 which goes back long before we were co-hosts,

00:23:57.440 means that we trust each other.

00:23:59.720 we understand each other we're not trying to undercut each other and we each have had the

00:24:05.140 experience of being like my mind wandered or I'm at a dead end and the other is like I got you

00:24:12.020 here we are it's confidence right it's like and for as we've been talking about like perfectionists

00:24:18.200 you have to have a lot of faith in someone absolutely that they can actually they're

00:24:23.440 doing it as well as you are and you two trust each other to pick up the ball and the thing is

00:24:27.740 when i i was doing this show the assignment and you and i talked for the assignment as well and

00:24:32.860 like it was a heavy lift because it was by myself yeah and the thing i have felt with engagement

00:24:38.620 party is really this kind of like relief and almost like i can breathe because if i drop the

00:24:46.060 ball he is going to catch it and if the train is going off the tracks she will get it back on and

00:24:52.380 we don't have to um and having shorthand i haven't had shorthand with someone in so long so i can say

00:24:58.880 okay we're gonna start you say this part i say that part and he'll go you mean and i'm like yep

00:25:03.120 and then we just do it yeah and the show is completely unscripted i mean we have an outline

00:25:09.280 but one of my friends commented he was like oh it's fun but i can tell you guys are still

00:25:14.140 professionals because you have like no filler words you have no and like that's true

00:25:20.160 we still talk like people who talk for a living on today's show yeah we shouldn't be able to do

00:25:28.060 that but we can do that okay so this question this first one is gonna tee us up in a funny way

00:25:35.080 this comes from brianna have you ever been with a group or person where you were code switching

00:25:39.560 like usual and for just a minute maybe like one or two words you somehow forgot to code switch

00:25:44.960 slipped up did anyone notice and if so any reaction i mean okay so i have an example

00:25:51.260 my primary mode of code switching is going basically like country like i grew up in idaho

00:25:57.120 and i one of my favorite journalistic experiences of my life or maybe like the most revelatory

00:26:03.860 was the first time i went and reported in montana actually this is when i was at buzzfeed um and

00:26:11.520 I reporting to that point had been really difficult for me like it just I'm an academic like talking

00:26:17.800 to people was my nightmare I was forcing myself to do it because I knew it was good for me you've

00:26:21.820 come a long way I went to Montana then I went to Montana and I was like I can get anyone to talk

00:26:28.300 to me and I know exactly how to talk to them yeah and and it really is like going back to like

00:26:36.780 under the people that I grew up going to church with the people that lived on the street like

00:26:40.880 at the things that we talk about so sometimes and I live in a place now that is like in some ways

00:26:45.900 very I don't know it's like super liberal progressive like Bellingham a semi-major city

00:26:52.100 is like right here but then it's also kind of hick and so sometimes I'll be talking to someone

00:26:58.740 and then my like I'll say coyote instead of coyote uh-huh and like there are things like that or

00:27:05.500 uh like just even how i say rural right um that come out or like they were out like flipping

00:27:13.120 cookies or uh out in the sticks like there's just different cookies is that related to cow poop

00:27:18.680 no no it's when you um there's many different variations of it but it's like when you go out

00:27:25.500 uh this is something that you do when you have nothing else to do uh when you go out and uh

00:27:31.820 there's either ice on the road or you go out into a field and you like go fast and then swerve the

00:27:40.100 car like basically like doing that's called flipping cookies like it can be there's many

00:27:45.240 different versions of it but it's like you in a parking lot an empty parking lot and then like

00:27:50.820 donuts yeah donuts that's the other one okay yeah those sorts of things i'm from massachusetts so

00:27:55.980 it's donuts no I'm just kidding I'm just kidding that's not a thing but those and I think that it

00:28:01.840 just kind of like some sometimes one of my friends that like from college who also lives here will

00:28:08.820 kind of poke fun at me when I slip into that where are they from most of the time they're from

00:28:14.100 Seattle oh the thing that comes to mind for me I think one of the most versatile and all-purpose

00:28:22.580 words but it is a word that i do not use in every context is girl like if somebody is going off on

00:28:31.360 something i'll be like girl or girl but that is a word that i tend not to use in the workplace for

00:28:37.720 obvious reasons it is it is not gendered i will call my husband girl like excuse me everyone says

00:28:46.280 that now do they it feels very young say girl and it's not that i'm not trying to be gay in the

00:28:52.020 workplace obviously I'm extremely gay everywhere I am but I like if I were in a pitch meeting with

00:28:57.760 producers right and one of the producers had an off-the-wall idea just turning to that producer

00:29:03.240 being like girl is not a thing I would do yeah you know what I mean yeah it's like a kind of

00:29:08.900 informal casual loving but also slightly barbed way of addressing somebody like girl are you 0.98

00:29:16.540 serious like that sort of thing yeah yeah yeah yeah um which like so much gay slang may have

00:29:22.160 been co-opted from black women's way of talking to each other but um it's something that i say

00:29:28.460 all the time in certain contexts and when it slips into other contexts it sort of feels like

00:29:35.360 to borrow an inapt metaphor maybe i'm showing a little too much leg yeah this is this is a really

00:29:43.460 great question um i'll i have to be honest i don't code switch very much um it's like a defining

00:29:51.320 aspect of my personality yeah like me here is like me in all the other places and isn't quite

00:29:59.200 a good fit in any of those places you know what i mean like i think i'm sort of used to that um

00:30:05.440 so it's not like i you know see my jamaican family and suddenly i have miracle like patois skills

00:30:11.620 like I that doesn't I don't have that gift yeah as you're saying it I do realize though that like

00:30:18.780 I have a group of girlfriends that are also kind of like black women who are in charge of things

00:30:27.020 and there are things we say to each other that we wouldn't say outside of the group precisely

00:30:33.460 because we're people who are like on display you know what I mean we are people who the stakes are

00:30:39.620 very high for slipping up and so a lot of the joking dialogue or even being vulgar right like

00:30:47.140 the way Ari's like well why won't you do blah blah blah and it's like for me I'm like no no no

00:30:51.040 this whole system is built on respectability politics which demands which demands certain

00:30:57.820 things of me and we are looser and more vulgar with each other than we would be outward facing 0.51

00:31:04.900 And that's not even just a black thing.

00:31:06.740 Do you know what I mean?

00:31:07.400 It's like multiple levels of like the fact that we're women.

00:31:11.280 It's black. It's women. 1.00

00:31:11.780 It's being in charge. 1.00

00:31:12.320 The fact that we're doing jobs.

00:31:13.440 Yeah.

00:31:13.900 I can confirm that Audie does not code switch, 1.00

00:31:17.440 but she does an amazing Massachusetts Southie accent.

00:31:21.140 It's not good.

00:31:22.280 No Massachusetts accent is good.

00:31:24.640 It is my favorite thing.

00:31:26.580 Well, I went to UMass.

00:31:27.980 I went to the state school.

00:31:29.440 And I also worked at a state house.

00:31:32.040 And like there's a world,

00:31:33.040 there's an alternate timeline

00:31:35.300 where I am a Massachusetts girl

00:31:37.560 where I like fully adopt everything

00:31:39.500 yeah and

00:31:41.180 I think about her sometimes there's a New York

00:31:43.620 girl too because I turned down a job

00:31:45.480 in New York at one point yeah 0.99

00:31:47.160 but yeah I think Ari has met 1.00

00:31:49.400 the Massachusetts girl a couple times well and

00:31:51.440 this actually this makes me think of something that Amy

00:31:53.400 Poehler does a lot on her

00:31:55.220 podcast which is when someone has Massachusetts

00:31:57.500 roots in any way she

00:31:59.480 and that person go into

00:32:01.480 their massachusetts accents for a second and they and they do like oh good for you like they like

00:32:07.960 yeah it's it's a moment of connection and a performance of intimacy that first of all is

00:32:13.040 very funny but also it's functioning on this other level like it made me like matt damon so much more

00:32:18.940 than well but imagine if you don't have it then right that was my growing up is all of these kids

00:32:25.200 you know like just for an example i remember because they're all like irish catholic kids

00:32:29.840 especially the town that I was in and so there was a lot of like it's junior high and Bobby

00:32:35.520 Bobby gave me a clatter ring a clatter ring it's like it's a clatter ring it's like a little I

00:32:42.640 don't know Irish something yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly and so it was like I'm wearing Bobby's 0.94

00:32:47.760 clatter ring we're going to the prom together and you I'm sorry you're a loser you know what I mean

00:32:52.440 And then like, for them, it's bonding.

00:32:56.000 For them, it's intimacy.

00:32:58.400 You know what I mean?

00:32:59.300 For them, it's like, ah, we're going to Dunkies.

00:33:01.140 Do you have the whip?

00:33:02.120 And it's like-

00:33:02.880 The whip?

00:33:03.820 The car.

00:33:04.420 The wippet car.

00:33:05.320 I never heard that.

00:33:06.480 Oh, that's another one that I, your whip, really?

00:33:08.920 Like I say rig sometimes for like any car, right?

00:33:12.560 Like your Camry is a rig.

00:33:15.020 Yeah.

00:33:16.100 Well, your car is your whip.

00:33:18.300 Yeah, amazing.

00:33:19.020 now and now I don't feel so bad about it right because I've made my living otherwise

00:33:25.020 but at the time it was super super lonely you just don't fit yeah there have been moments that

00:33:33.160 so I lived in Fargo till I was eight yeah and there have definitely been moments where I'm

00:33:37.980 interviewing like Noah Hawley the creator of the tv show Fargo or an author of a book set in

00:33:43.420 Minnesota and it's cute and fun at the end of the interview for a moment just to let that come out

00:33:49.760 yeah and it comes out so I was I was born in Minnesota and and uh moved away from there quite

00:33:56.860 young but all of my family has the accent like my extended family yeah and so it comes out and I

00:34:03.040 spent a good amount of time in Minnesota it comes out in a way that sometimes I'm embarrassed about

00:34:06.980 right because you start mimicking the person's accent oh and it feels like you're mocking them

00:34:11.560 It feels like you're mocking them when you start, like, oh, sure, don't you know?

00:34:14.940 Yeah.

00:34:15.320 Oh, it's been real nice.

00:34:16.340 Yeah.

00:34:16.620 Oh, yeah.

00:34:17.580 Let's just, or I do do, I do say things like ufta, bufta.

00:34:21.220 Oh, ufta.

00:34:22.020 Ufta is a perfect example of a, like, linguistic signifier that puts you in a place.

00:34:27.040 But there are so many words, you know, growing up in a Jewish family, there are all these Yiddish words in my vocabulary that just, I wouldn't know how to express myself without them.

00:34:35.100 And the only equivalent from the Midwest that I can think of is the word ufta, which is not just North Dakota or Minnesota.

00:34:41.220 It's kind of like pan-Midwestern and so useful.

00:34:44.720 I'm sure it comes from the Scandinavian immigrants that sort of became the farming families of that region.

00:34:50.300 But Ufta, yeah.

00:34:51.660 Or Oop.

00:34:52.840 Like, Oop your bag.

00:34:53.960 Oop.

00:34:54.560 Oop. 0.90

00:34:55.160 Oop.

00:34:56.340 Yeah.

00:34:57.040 We're going to talk about Kassid now. 1.00

00:34:58.800 Fuck yeah. 1.00

00:35:01.000 Does Fakakta count? 1.00

00:35:02.260 I said that in a meeting today and somebody was like, I appreciate you.

00:35:06.000 although on the on a pod episode of engagement party the other day i used the word goyesha

00:35:12.260 and you were like i don't know what that means well i kind of knew but i was like are we gonna

00:35:16.740 go down this rabbit hole right wait wait so goyesha like i know what a goy is like the most

00:35:22.140 the most non-jewish imaginable like goyesha or just generally like non-jewish like um you know 0.92

00:35:29.540 eating jello that's a very goyesha thing because the gelatin saying ufta is rather of course there

00:35:35.100 were plenty of jews in the midwest but yeah it's not derogatory i only know not good words because

00:35:40.740 of where i grew up fakakta is not a bad word like shiksa like i feel like that's something you heard

00:35:46.740 from someone else's mother about that's right the kid who went to the prom you know with so and so

00:35:55.420 and she didn't like that girl like that's the problem like you overhear all this you become a

00:36:01.180 little baby uh anthropologist when you're not in the in group okay our cussing related question

00:36:07.380 comes from julie i would love to hear about code switching and cussing when do people use it and

00:36:13.860 when do people turn it off what are the cultural implications for not turning it off i work in a

00:36:19.080 corporate environment but then i also work with field guys cussing always earns me street cred

00:36:23.740 with field guys but in corporate people always think i'm just very brash would love to hear your

00:36:29.440 thoughts i this is so interesting to me because it is so generational i think and even the fact

00:36:37.940 that julie used the word cussing is also a tell right not a word i would use what do you use

00:36:44.340 cursing oh swearing yeah you used to swear like even that like the phrase like oh he used to swear

00:36:52.180 um and i i'm around a lot of 11 year olds lately and watching them figure out how to cuss

00:36:58.600 is so interesting like they it's and are do you have a no cussing allowed household with your

00:37:04.280 kids or is it like i don't have kids i don't have kids so oh i see when you said you're around 11

00:37:08.300 i have my friends kids um and they they know and no one i know has a no cussing household

00:37:15.820 oh we have a no cussing household for sure uh because i learned very quickly and i don't know

00:37:22.880 why more parents don't understand this they just cuss at you right like what why do i want to hear

00:37:29.380 that this is like it's it's not like you just introduce it they go and use it on someone else

00:37:34.680 they test it out on you first and you know i don't want to go to uh generational spanking

00:37:41.100 instincts i'm like okay let me just make sure you know this is not an option for you yeah we did

00:37:47.480 however say i have taught them swears i've been like today is the day you tell me the word you

00:37:53.700 want to know i'm gonna tell you and then i like chat gbt i'm like oh what is the roots of this

00:37:59.080 word and then we sit down and i explain here's the word here's the context and sometimes like

00:38:05.320 here's how it's grounded in misogyny well but i don't end up saying it that way like anyway the

00:38:10.880 point is you have a real question but yeah i have a whole thing around like dealing with cussing

00:38:15.100 with my kids it's not gonna work it's gonna blow up in my face but I've made a concerted effort

00:38:18.500 the thing that I hear a lot of is like it's okay to cuss around our family and and I like because 0.99

00:38:26.440 I'm a close friend like they I'm part of that it's not okay to like call call your mom a bitch 0.95

00:38:33.320 that's not okay that's still not okay right um but you also like they are trying to teach them 0.82

00:38:39.760 and I think this is kind of interesting teach them that there are contexts in which you do not

00:38:43.920 use swears yeah and i do like when you're hosting a public radio show when you're hosting a public

00:38:49.080 well and also the thing that is so interesting is how the norms on what you're allowed to say

00:38:56.480 like the fcc norms have even slightly shifted right um and i sometimes get emails about

00:39:07.020 you write beautifully but you really shouldn't put those swear words in them but that was no one

00:39:13.480 under the age of 65 is writing that email to me. In one of my many parallel lives, I created a

00:39:22.760 cabaret show with the actor Alan Cumming. And the two of us toured the country together with it for

00:39:27.240 about six years. Unlike me, this is a real thing. Just so you know, before when I was like my

00:39:31.800 parallel life, this is an actual thing that happened. Yeah. So the show was very funny.

00:39:36.020 And we realized early on that we could play up the fact that nobody in the audience had ever heard

00:39:40.520 me swear and so uh because people in the audience will have listened to me on npr for many years 0.99

00:39:46.220 where my language is very proper and you know i tell some story and alan says oh fuck you ari 0.93

00:39:52.240 shapiro and then i kind of pause and i'm like oh you know i really love my job and i love exploring 0.50

00:39:56.760 the english language but there's a corner of the english language i've not been allowed to explore

00:40:00.360 in my work and alan goes well you're not on npr now are you and so i kind of i ask the audience 0.97

00:40:06.740 for permission and they're like cheering and applauding and then I wind up and I go fuck 0.93

00:40:12.480 you Alan Cumming and everyone cheers and it's like I love being able to play up right that 0.94

00:40:18.720 contrast between what people expect from me and what they're getting from me yeah well to answer

00:40:24.000 the person's question yeah the way that I try and can talk about this with people and again

00:40:28.940 because I'm dealing with my kids is language it's a it's currency and in that case certain

00:40:38.180 phrases you're going to be rewarded for using them and in another context you will be punished

00:40:44.620 for using them yes and the whole thing about becoming an adult is figuring out which is which

00:40:50.020 which is really hard that's what junior high is for yeah pretty much the worst ages is when you

00:40:57.180 navigate that stuff because in the case of swearing it conveys authenticity it conveys a

00:41:04.680 kind of honest to the bone net like this must be more honest somehow because the person is using

00:41:10.340 language that like the word you use when you literally can't think of any other thing to say

00:41:15.320 um and in an and in some context that can be played with like ari can be rewarded for that

00:41:22.900 because it confounds expectations i benefit from that as well you know what i mean a lots of times 0.92

00:41:29.080 it's like oh she's not a snob she's not an obnoxious news anchor person because she's willing

00:41:35.720 to swear every once in a while or make a joke or whatever so i think that's the way for the person

00:41:40.900 who asked the question i want to say that's what's going on is you're being rewarded in some context

00:41:45.720 and punished in others and then the thing that's really throwing you is when the context you think

00:41:51.320 where you'll be punished you're actually rewarded and sometimes thank you for remembering that there

00:41:55.120 was an act there was i remember earlier when i was like there's questions on this show okay let 1.00

00:41:59.280 me play ball because what happens sometimes for women is it's like look at her cool girl right

00:42:05.600 she's not like the other girls you know what i mean like she's gonna swear and you get weird 1.00

00:42:11.600 little points for that um but it's hard to know right like when that is gonna be okay and when

00:42:18.320 it's not when it's sexy and when it's frustrating you age one year and all of a sudden it's not so

00:42:23.140 cool right well and like it's weird sometimes if you're trying too hard like so I didn't swear 0.80

00:42:29.260 growing up at all and I sometimes I would say like shit in my mind over and over again just

00:42:36.680 and I would like feel bad but this is like fifth grade right I go to camp seventh grade bunch of 0.85

00:42:41.740 people from all over the country and I get into the cabin and they're all swearing and I was like

00:42:47.960 oh no like I need to learn how to swear right now um and so the first time I ever said a swear 0.95

00:42:57.100 word out loud I said Lisa and I can remember I said my suitcase is over there damn like not 0.78

00:43:05.080 knowing how to do it they all applaud they just were like they probably didn't even notice but

00:43:11.980 it sticks in my head because i was trying to figure out the contextual clues right and i think

00:43:18.500 what our question asker is asking is like it's kind of frustrating to have to think about this

00:43:23.860 all the time but at the same time it seems like she's got it covered yeah i was about to say she's

00:43:28.960 she's like yeah but in corporate i feel like people just think it's very brash

00:43:34.000 yeah i get it there's just these corporate norms which i feel like i feel like old school newsrooms

00:43:39.640 the stereotype before my time

00:43:41.520 was that it was a place everybody was swearing

00:43:43.480 all the time and these days that's just

00:43:45.440 not my experience.

00:43:47.160 So a friend of mine. I blame BuzzFeed.

00:43:49.980 I blame Slack

00:43:52.260 but also I think

00:43:53.860 a friend of mine who is a journalist

00:43:55.720 like in small town

00:43:57.780 Montana forever. She

00:43:59.880 says the real transformation is when

00:44:02.040 being a journalist went from like

00:44:03.880 something you could do really without a

00:44:05.940 college education. It was like

00:44:07.680 it was a just a job a j-o-b job and you worked it like anyone else and like you a lot of people

00:44:13.860 loved it but it wasn't something that like had this pedigree behind it and that's really

00:44:19.620 transformed with the you know consolidation of journalism in so many different ways even npr

00:44:25.260 was massively went from like uh i really like to hear myself on this tape recorder and i like

00:44:31.920 bell bottoms to, you know, people who like had advanced degrees, like bar editor of their

00:44:39.580 fellowship programs. And the kids who came in on the fellowship programs were wildly overqualified

00:44:47.300 compared to the people who had started. So to your point, that is very true. That is very, very true.

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00:49:12.880 Our next question comes from Shauna.

00:49:15.140 I currently live in North Carolina, and our local NPR affiliate, WUNC,

00:49:20.800 features a few hosts whose voices deviate from the incredibly consistent NPR non-regional

00:49:27.000 diction. In this case, there are two Southern Black women announcers who maintain their regional 0.97

00:49:32.740 accents on air. They are Leonita Inge and Therese Piggott. It's honestly a breath of fresh air to 0.97

00:49:39.280 hear NPR hosts sound like normal, albeit incredibly smart and well-informed people.

00:49:45.380 Is this refusal to code switch becoming more common, or is this a regional anomaly?

00:49:50.800 I've noticed NPR trying to do some work on this.

00:49:53.820 Yeah, and it's not only NPR.

00:49:55.000 I lived in London for two years, and the BBC underwent a thorough shift from requiring that everybody sound like the BBC, whatever that has meant for a century plus, to allowing people to sound like the UK in all of its diverse reality.

00:50:10.440 And I'm not sure that NPR's shift in that direction has been quite as deliberate and dramatic, but there's definitely been a shift.

00:50:16.980 It's not just WUNC, which is a great station.

00:50:19.380 And it won't be for lack of talking about it. I mean, going through one of those weird—NPR goes through these sort of cyclical paroxysms of debate and concern.

00:50:29.200 And infamously, who is it? Chenjerai Kuminika, who is a very talented person, had a very great podcast about policing that came out a few years ago.

00:50:40.000 he was the one who really drew a bunch of internet attention to NPR voice by having this essay

00:50:46.660 describing how he in his own head was code switching or altering how he presented himself.

00:50:53.300 So that made everybody talk about it. And I remember I got 1000 phone calls from people

00:50:59.180 that were like, we'd like to interview you about this. And I was like, no, like, I'm all, what?

00:51:05.780 why would I be in this conversation well first of all I think just being there's so few like

00:51:11.980 national like anchors of color and stuff like that you get dragged into a lot of stuff that's

00:51:16.720 not related to you yeah um because people you know they're just like oh this would be the best

00:51:22.060 person and I think sometimes for me I feel like what is what is the benefit of me drawing the

00:51:31.360 spotlight to my direction in this conversation or should the people who raised it get to hear

00:51:38.580 an answer from the people who could address it yeah and sometimes i feel like when you slide in

00:51:44.700 there and draw the attention away the people who actually have to freaking answer for something

00:51:49.380 they just kind of disappear while you're off you know while you're the one becoming the face of

00:51:55.200 something so i i don't i pick my battles i also feel like they've kind of performed that they're

00:52:01.280 trying to change things like um I'm trying to Aisha Roscoe has talked a little bit about like

00:52:07.960 the mail that she receives on air everyone got mail like I should say everyone like Ari got it

00:52:15.000 I got it but yes the conversation around any kind of voice that was deemed ethnic and by that I mean 0.82

00:52:22.260 even are you Latino enrolling your R's like you need to be on a whole other separate program

00:52:27.900 I think that stuff honestly has passed. I feel like NPR is sort of the audience that is basically just college town liberals, you know what I mean, who also don't want development in their backyard, whatever that person was. 0.77

00:52:43.120 I really don't think they're the dominant audience the way they might have been.

00:52:48.120 And I do feel like it won't be, what I'll say is the voices you hear, that's not some sort of DEI.

00:52:54.220 All of those people are like talented people who moved up in the system and they were given a chance the way they always should have been.

00:53:02.760 And maybe the debate allowed for that.

00:53:05.520 There was also something that I was aware of long before I became a host that proved to be true after I became a host,

00:53:10.860 which is not in any way to diminish the real race and gender-based inequalities,

00:53:18.040 but every host's voice is loved by some people and hated by some people.

00:53:23.840 So true.

00:53:24.560 And for every listener who says,

00:53:26.480 Scott, Simon's laugh is my favorite thing every Saturday morning.

00:53:29.820 There's another listener who says,

00:53:31.480 every time I hear that laugh, I want to turn off the radio.

00:53:34.180 And something about shifting from being a reporter to being a host

00:53:38.080 means occupying this role where you're not just conveying the news, you're also keeping people

00:53:43.760 company. And whoever you are in that seat, some people want you to keep them company and some

00:53:50.180 people don't. And that's something you just have to come to terms with when you become a host.

00:53:54.040 And on TV, I remember I was saying something and I was like, I can't say that. And the coach was

00:53:59.420 like, listen, I need you to get over trying to be liked. He's like, I understand what you're

00:54:04.940 trying to do you're trying to preserve something here but the truth is he goes any person who

00:54:09.780 has done well um in this space it's because people either loved or hated them that they made

00:54:20.460 something they made people feel and you can see the internet is that cranked up to 11 right you

00:54:27.100 don't every internet personality is someone who you can love or hate and there aren't very many

00:54:32.840 successful internet personalities who are kind of nice and in the middle.

00:54:38.340 Can I tell you a really formative experience I had that shaped my view of this?

00:54:42.100 At the beginning of my career, I worked the overnight shift on Morning Edition as an

00:54:46.600 editorial assistant, and one of my jobs was to go through the listener email inbox.

00:54:50.980 So I saw everything that listeners were writing in about what they loved and hated, most often

00:54:56.560 hated, and I would forward all of those messages to all the reporters that they were writing

00:55:00.760 about so that by the time I became a reporter and started getting hate mail of my own addressed to

00:55:07.460 me, I felt like, oh, I've arrived. This is this is what happens when you're a professional. And

00:55:15.160 now it's happening to me. And that means I've made it. Yeah. It also reminds me of something that

00:55:21.080 Ben Smith, the former editor in chief of BuzzFeed, used to told me when I was basically figuring out

00:55:26.660 how to journalism uh he said that any good piece that you write really well reported piece you're

00:55:34.580 going to kind of piss off basically everyone that you interviewed for the story because you're not

00:55:40.540 taking a side right that like there's there like some people are going to hate the piece some people

00:55:46.320 are going to love the piece like but there's no uniform reaction other than maybe like sometimes

00:55:51.900 I think like people would be like that's a good piece of journalism but you can't like you can't

00:55:57.220 just try to write a piece that every single person is going to like especially the people who are

00:56:00.980 involved in the story and to me I've tried to keep that with me I also tell Melody not to take all of

00:56:08.260 like remember that the comments that you get people want to comment when they don't like something

00:56:12.540 and they forget to comment when they do like something totally or they don't see the point

00:56:17.040 yeah you know I've done that I'm like they know they're great they don't want to know it from me

00:56:21.220 And then I send a note, and they're like, oh, my God, thank you so much for just noticing.

00:56:26.480 We'll get this last question on class.

00:56:28.540 Okay, but then I have one or two questions for you, but go on.

00:56:30.840 Okay, all right.

00:56:31.960 Let's go ahead and make this our Ask An Anything segment.

00:56:35.300 We'll hear a listener question about small talk, and then, Adi and Ari, you can ask me whatever you want.

00:56:41.540 So, listeners, if you're not a paid subscriber, you're going to be missing out.

00:56:44.640 head to patreon.com slash culture study sign up or upgrade your subscription and get the full

00:56:50.680 episode adi and ori this has been so fun uh if people want to find both of you on the internet

00:56:57.660 where can they find more of you please tell us well the show is engagement party and it's on all

00:57:02.580 good podcast platforms and even the mediocre ones and it has a newsletter i have a sub oh it has a

00:57:08.680 newsletter yeah also i personally have a sub stack that i publish every week and on instagram i'm at

00:57:13.840 ari shapiro you can find me most platforms at audi off mic um and then when i ran out of energy

00:57:21.380 they just all became audi cornish so you can you can find me anywhere i check my messages all the

00:57:28.260 time i'm in the dms and you know as a result of the show we're out there scrolling with the rest

00:57:34.980 of you so it's doing it we're doing it thank you both so much this has been a delight in every

00:57:42.500 I love talking to you.

00:57:43.720 You're one of my favorite people.

00:57:45.500 Thank you so much for having us.

00:57:51.340 Thanks for listening to the Culture Study Podcast.

00:57:53.280 Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts because we have so many great episodes

00:57:57.980 in the works and I promise you don't want to miss any of them.

00:58:01.460 If you want to suggest a topic, ask a question about the culture that surrounds you or submit

00:58:05.460 a question for our subscriber-only advice time segment, go to our Google form at tinyurl.com

00:58:12.040 slash culture study pod, or check the show notes for a link. And if you want to support the show

00:58:16.620 and get bonus content, head to patreon.com slash culture study. It's five bucks a month or $50 a

00:58:23.660 year, and you'll get ad free episodes and exclusive advice time segment and weekly discussion threads

00:58:28.600 for each episode. The culture study podcast is produced by me and Helen Peterson and Melody

00:58:33.980 Rowell. Our music is by Poddington Bear. You can find me on Instagram at Anne Helen Peterson,

00:58:39.140 Melody at Melodias 47 and the show at Culture Study Pod.

Culture Study Podcast - October 14, 2026

Code-switching and Cussing (with Audie Cornish and Ari Shapiro!!)

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