97: The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions (with Eli Burnstein)
What's the difference between a KINK and a FETISH? Does it matter if you ASSUME or PRESUME? English is full of these close groups of words, and author Eli Burnstein has untangled many of them in his d...
28 Apr 20241h 38min
96: Language City (with Ross Perlin)
New York City is home to a lot of languages! Sometimes a sizeable language community can live on just a couple of floors of an apartment building. Dr Ross Perlin is working to find and promote minorit...
19 Apr 20241h 45min
95: Why the Far-Right Demagogues Language (with Caitlin Green and Maureen Kosse)
Language authorities. Right-wing politicians. White supremacists and feminists. What do they have in common? They're all working together to fight gender-inclusive language. But why bring language int...
1 Apr 20241h 44min
94: Mailbag of Sextillion and Three
Dr Kelly Wright is helping us understand the link between public health and language maintenance. And she's helping us with our voluminous Mailbag! Why can you have a TRIFECTA, but not any other numb...
18 Mar 20241h 16min
93: Stop! Grammar Time (live with Ellen Jovin and friends)
In honour of Grammar Day (4 March), we are joined live by special guest Ellen Jovin, who regularly dispenses grammar advice and wisdom from the Grammar Table. Now she's testing our grammatical mettle ...
2 Mar 20241h 28min
92: In the First 600 Milliseconds (with Rachel Nordlinger)
What are your eyes doing when you describe a scene? It may depend on your language. New research from Dr Rachel Nordlinger and team shows that we do a lot of planning and scanning very quickly, and i...
22 Feb 20241h 45min
91: Linguistic Time Machine, part 2: Prehistory
We're climbing back into the linguistic time machine and taking a look at language in the long view. We'll find out what language was like 100,000 years ago 1 million years ago 10 million years ago ...
31 Jan 20241h 33min
90: Enpoopification (with Grant Barrett and Tim Brookes)
We're talking words, and no one has a way with words like Grant Barrett. He's here to tell us what it's like at Dictionary.com, and what went down at the annual American Dialect Society Words of the Y...
21 Jan 20242h 5min
