The Industrial Revolution and the Origins of Grammar

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The Industrial Revolution had come into play. Class distinctions were dissolving. There was a greater emphasis on equality, which had never really happened before. So as that class rose up, what was a demarker of being from the aristocracy versus being from just the middle class language? Because there was a difference, some class differences in language. And you could make a buck while also promoting your own usage and trying to keep your status where it was. This is really what gave birth to these grammar books that we still use today.

Paranoid about the “ums” and “uhs” that pepper your presentations? Bewildered by “hella” or the meteoric rise of “so”? Can the word “dude” help people bond across social divides? Why are we always trying to make our intensifiers ever more intense? Are these language tics, habits, and developments in our speech a sign of cultural and linguistic degeneration? Fridland weaves together history, psychology, science, and laugh-out-loud anecdotes to explain why we speak the way we do today, and how that impacts what our kids may be saying tomorrow.

Shermer and Fridland discuss: Okay, Boomer language • accents • ChatGPT • gender pronouns • gender differences in language use • forensic language analysis • evolution of language • why children learn language naturally but must be taught to read and write • literature, film, and TV’s influence on language use • cancel culture and taboo language • language and identity politics • y’all, contractions, and other language shortcuts • tracking human migrations by language, and vice versa • Fargo, and more.

Valerie Fridland is a professor of linguistics in the English Department at the University of Nevada, Reno. She writes a popular language blog on Psychology Today called “Language in the Wild,” and is also a professor for The Great Courses series.