104: Dogwhistles (with Elin McCready, Lizzy Hanks, Jesse Egbert, and Rikker Dockum)
Can you hear them? Only if you're meant to. Political dogwhistles exploit lack of knowledge in one group to send a coded message to another group. But that's just the beginning. How are dogwhistles di...
26 Aug 20241h 44min
103: Unequal Englishes (with Ruanni Tupas and Nicole Holliday)
There are lots of Englishes out there, but the way we approach varieties of English sets learners up to fail. How do we combat language ideologies out there in the world — and in our own minds? Dr Rua...
3 Aug 20242h 20min
102: Signed Language Mailbag (with Adam Schembri, Christy Filipich, and Mark Ellison)
What do signed languages have in common? How do oral languages influence signed languages? How do they influence each other? Here to answer these questions and many more, it's Dr Adam Schembri of the ...
27 Juli 20242h 45min
101: Talkin' Chomsky (with Katie Martin and Abduweli Ayup)
Noam Chomsky is one of the world's foremost thinkers, and his impact on linguistics is incalculable. Yet many people are only familiar with his political activism. What are his linguistic ideas, and w...
8 Juli 20242h 27min
100: Spicy Mailbag
A hundred episodes already? To celebrate, we're doing our favourite kind of episode: a Mailbag. Why is it a BLOW JOB when there's no blowing? Why JOB? And why is OFF often used in sexual expressions?...
19 Juni 20241h 27min
99: Gender in Germany (with Rob Tegethoff and Ciarán from Corner Späti)
What's going on in Germany? How are people talking about gender in the German language, and how is freedom of expression being handled? We have a couple of German experts — linguist Rob Tegethoff and ...
11 Juni 20242h 8min
98: Origin Uncertain (with Anatoly Liberman)
How much can we really know about the words we use? What are the facts behind some of the most tangled etymologies in English? And is our "Related or Not" game a good way of approaching word history? ...
20 Maj 20241h 43min
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
