An astounding story of linguistics in the public eye that begins with Beyoncé’s name being added to the new edition of the Larousse dictionary, an event that so impressed the BBC that on 5/2 they approached the distinguished German linguist Martin Haspelmath to comment on it, a request that MH found utterly bewildering (as did pretty much everyone who knows MH and his work — his meticulous scholarship — and Queen Bey and her work — her extraordinary voice and her presentation of herself as a flaming-hot sexual being). In fact, the more you know, the weirder it gets.
Eventually, as a genuine éminence grise (I was born in 1940, MH in 1963, and QB in 1981, so we’re dealing with three generations here), I undertook to recount some of my experience in being interviewed by the media; I’ll re-play this below. But first, an enormous amount of background.
