Gretchen McCulloch

Gretchen McCulloch is a Canadian Internet linguist. On her blog and her podcast, "Lingthusiasm", she offers linguistic analysis of online communication such as internet memes, emoji and instant messaging. She writes regularly for Wired and previously did so for The Toast. In 2019, she published a book on internet linguistics, Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language.

Education

McCulloch obtained a master's degree in linguistics at McGill University.

Work

McCulloch's writing online focuses on internet linguistics, a field first advocated by David Crystal. On her blog, she regularly discusses trends in use of English words, phrases and emoji in online communications as well as offering analysis of language form used in internet communications. She was a resident writer on linguistics at feminist website The Toast, where in 2014 she wrote an article analyzing the grammar of the doge meme. This article received coverage on BBC Radio 4, where McCulloch was interviewed on the subject by Evan Davis.

In 2019, McCulloch's first book, Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, was published by Riverhead Books. The book explores the history of online communication in English and the linguistic trends that have emerged within it over the years, as well as the effect such communication might have on the English language as a whole. The book received critical acclaim from The New York Times and soon after publication appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list.