Episodes
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It may seem apparent how we got from busyness to business, but the origins of the word “busy” itself are shrouded in mystery. John explains.
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As a daily listener to WNYC Public Radio in New York City, John has noticed that a certain announcer frequently mispronounces words on air. He has thoughts.
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Missing episodes?
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Working backwards from existing languages, linguists have had great success reconstructing Proto-Indo-European. Does that mean we can do the same for all language families? John explains.
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A cyclone came through and blew off most of English’s clothes, says John, in Part II of his discussion of Indo-European.
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There are at least five defining features among hundreds of related languages from English to Hindi to Russian. And what does any of that have to do with the Hittites? John explains.
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The simple verb to go quickly gets complex in just about any language and English is no exception. John explains.
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What does the bat in “acrobat” have to do with the word come? John explains.
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Reflexive pronouns are redundant in a way, sure, but they’re also quite common in many languages. John explains.
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There’s good reason to believe that sophisticated speech began long before homo sapiens hit the scene. John explains.
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Does Ayesha Rascoe have a good radio voice? Not according to many NPR listeners, who find her loud, high-pitched and generally grating. John explains.
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A recent study suggests that a new dialect is emerging in the southern part of Florida. John explains.
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The trial transcript of a 225-year-old murder is filled with fascinating evidence of the way we used to talk. John explains.
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Many English verbs have three forms — sing, sang and sung, for example. The problem is that speakers seem to want only two. John explains.
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Too — whether about excess, addition or contradiction — evolved from to. John explains.
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Some languages adopt their “health” word from the concept of wholeness — a metaphor that makes perfect sense. Other languages, however, adopt their “health” word from trees. John explains.
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Like the French word droit, English’s right has taken on a number of useful metaphorical meanings. John explains.
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In this favorite from the archives, John discusses some unwritten rules of English that can be remarkably difficult for a learner of English to master.
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The word “record” can be broken down into two parts, the re and the cord. But what do those parts even mean? John explains.
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John is traveling this week and so we’re running a previous episode about the speech patterns of Bette Davis, George Gershwin, Louis Armstrong and countless other Americans of the 1930s. Why do they all sound like that?
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So many of our words have ugly associations that are particular to a historical time or event. Should we expunge them entirely from our vocabulary? Can we? John weighs in.
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