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A WORDY CELEBRATION OF ALL THINGS LEXICAL,
LIVE ON ZOOM WITH RECORDED EPISODES ON YOUTUBE.

The That Word Chat logo with the second line, "with Editor Mark Allen."

Live on Zoom

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Episode 86: Keith Houston

Keith Houston, who delved into unusual punctuation with Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks, joins That World Chat on July 15 to talk about his newest book, Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji.

The book had its North American debut on July 1 and launches in the UK on July 17.

Houston's other books are Empire of the Sum, about the calculator, and The Book, about books. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and on Mental Floss, BBC Culture, and Literary Hub.
 
He lives in Linlithgow, Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿. His favorite emoji is 🐳.

🖋️ Sign up below, and join us at 4:30 p.m. 🕟 EDT (20:30 UTC) on Tuesday, July 15 🗓️.

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That Word Chat is a blast every time we do it. It's also a big time commitment for host Mark Allen and producers Heather Saunders and Sarahni Pecson. We work hard to bring you a casual, fun, usually professional experience. What keeps us going most is hearing how much you love the experience. Please consider being part of the team with various levels of support, each with some cool benefits — most levels include access to our private Slack group. You can opt to support us monthly or annually. 

TWC 84: Our chat with cognitive psychologist Corinne Jorgenson about writing and editing with generative AI 

TWC 81: A panel of international lexical superstars with a wide-ranging discussion about the words that typified 2024

TWC 80: Amanda Jones, author of "That Librarian," about her ordeal that came with standing up to book banning in her Louisiana town

TWC 79: Jesse Schiedlower, author of "The F-Word," now in its fourth edition, and the online Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction

TWC 78: Ben Yagoda, author of "Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English," talking about English expressions making their way to the U.S.

TWC 77: Danica Salazar of the Oxford English Dictionary, talking about new entries reflecting Australian English

TWC 76: Karen Yin, author of The Conscious Style Guide, a "roadmap for writing and speaking with sensitivity and awareness"

TWC 75: Cory Doctorow, prolific science fiction author, activist and journalist, on his books, and monopolies in tech and publishing

TWC 74: Erin Brenner winner of the ACES Robinson Prize and author of The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors

TWC 73: Russell Harper, principal reviser of The Chicago Manual of Style, with a preview of the new 18th edition, live from ACES 2024 in San Diego

TWC 71: Maggie Smith and Connie Schultz, two accomplished Ohio writers in different genres and first-time children’s book authors

TWC 70: Words of the Year 2023, a discussion of the words that typified 2023, featuring one of the greatest panels of wordsters ever assembled

Jeanette Fast Redmond

Betty Anne Bardell

TWC 68: Megan Rosenbloom, author of Dark Archives, about books bound in human skin

TWC 67: Daniel Heuman, CEO of Intelligent Editing, on the future of artificial intelligence in editing

TWC 63: Roy Peter Clark, America’s writing coach talks about his latest book, Tell It Like It Is: A Guide to Clear and Honest Writing

TWC 61: Copy editor Amy J. Schneider on her new book, Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction

TWC 58: Joshua Blackburn, game designer and quizmaster and a chance to play the new League of the Lexicon

TWC 56: Kelly Wright, a sociolinguist specializing in linguistic discrimination and its institutional outcomes 

TWC 53: The brothers Zimmer, Ben and Carl, talking about writing about words and science

TWC 52: Danica Salazar of the Oxford English Dictionary and plans for the Oxford Dictionary of African American English

TWC 43: Editing superstars Denise Cowle and Louise Harnby, co-hosts of The Editing Podcast

TWC 66: Jeff Jarvis, internet pioneer and CUNY professor, talking about the age of print and the future of online

TWC 65: Maggie Lorenz, just after the Scripps National Spelling Bee, with some of the inside scoop

TWC 60: Gael Spivak, on the International Organization for Standardization's new standards for plain language

TWC 55: Ryan North, author, illustrator, supervillain consultant, polymath and creator of Dinosaur Comics and more

TWC 59: Words of the Year 2022, featuring an international panel of linguists and lexicographers

TWC 54: Ellen Jovin, author of Rebel With A Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian

TWC 50: Dennis Duncan of the University College London talking about his "Index, A History of the"

TWC 49: Anne Curzan, the voice of linguistics for Michigan Public Radio on the show That's What They Say

TWC 69: Mignon Fogarty and the release party of The Grammar Daily: 365 Quick Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl

TWC 48: Half dozen guests representing the dictionaries and organizations that selected a word of the year for 2021

TWC 47: Our second annual foray into word puzzle, featuring four puzzle creators from The Inkubator

TWC 46: Paula Froke, editor of the Associated Press Stylebook, on the decision-making process at the influential guide

TWC 45: Fred Shapiro, editor of the updated edition of "The New Yale Book of Quotations"

TWC 44: Editor and sensitivity reader Crystal Shelley, creator of the Conscious Language Toolkits for Editors and Writers

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