Lexicon Valley

Have you noticed the seemingly stratospheric rise of the word “so” in recent years? People use it not only as a conjunction or an intensifying adverb — as in “That’s so awesome!” — but also to begin or end sentences in a manner pregnant with implied meaning. So… Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield set out to determine what exactly this sort of “so” might in fact be accomplishing. Twitter: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley

Does Scrabble in fact celebrate language? Or does it merely reduce English to a set of mathematical symbols and probability calculations? Mike Vuolo talks to Word Freak author and competitive Scrabble player Stefan Fatsis about how a math game disguised as a word game nevertheless unlocks the essential beauty of the English language. Twitter: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley

In the early 1960s, amid a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, a burgeoning civil rights movement here at home, and a dawning countercultural revolution, America’s intellectual class was in an utter freakout over a dictionary. That’s right, the 1961 publication of Webster’s Third Edition incited otherwise sober-minded newspaper and magazine writers to declare nothing less than the end of the world. Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield talk to author David Skinner about his book, The Story of Ain’t: America, Its Language, and the Most Controversial Dictionary Ever Published. Twitter: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley

Kathryn Stockett’s dialogue-heavy The Help, a novel that was adapted into an Oscar-winning movie, caused a stir over whether a white writer should depict African-American English. But wait, what is African-American English exactly? And isn’t it called Ebonics? Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield sift through the history, misconceptions and reality of a vernacular wrapped in a dialect inside a language. Twitter: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley

Do you flinch when someone says “between you and I”? Textbook English tells us that it’s categorically ungrammatical, and yet it’s arguably more common than the officially sanctioned “between you and me.” Tennessee Williams, Mark Twain, William Shakespeare — all were guilty of using “I” when the sentence cried out for “me.” Or maybe they weren’t so guilty after all. Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield discuss the oft-uttered, much-maligned “between you and I.” Twitter: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the evolution of the other F-word. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley

We all learned that you’re not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition. But from where did this alleged rule come? And why does it encumber us with such labored sentences as the one preceding this? Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield explore the history of the terminal preposition rule, and whether there are good reasons to follow it. Twitter: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley