Lexicon Valley
Lexicon Valley
A podcast about language, with hosts Mike Vuolo, Bob Garfield and John McWhorter.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Oct 19, 2021 • 37min
A*#holes and B%tches
Dividing up nouns as “masculine” and “feminine” has not been a part of English for many centuries. And yet our language remains peppered throughout with gender, often overtly in terms like Mrs. and Mr. Sometimes, however, it’s more subtle.
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Oct 5, 2021 • 37min
On the Singular They and Slippery Slopes
English has been calling out for a gender-neutral pronoun for more than a century, with many failed attempts at invented words and portmanteaus. Singular "they" — once the scourge of schoolhouse grammarians — has now emerged to become the pronoun of choice for many outside the so-called gender binary.
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Sep 22, 2021 • 32min
The Pandemic's Effect on Language
Turns out that some languages are less intelligible through a mask than others, and, believe it or not, it all depends on how often you use certain consonants. It’s called the McGurk effect and it’s the closest that linguistics comes to actual magic.
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Sep 7, 2021 • 36min
What Do They Speak in Afghanistan?
Dari and Pashto are the two major official languages of Afghanistan. One, says John McWhorter, is “disarmingly approachable” while the other is “deliciously intimidating.”
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Aug 24, 2021 • 30min
The Morphing of Critical Race Theory
What did CRT originally mean, and what does it mean now? What are children actually being taught? And why do some terms tend to become so thorny over time?
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Aug 10, 2021 • 35min
Mare of Easttown and the Philly Accent
In the 7-part crime drama, Mare of Easttown, Kate Winslet plays a flannel-clad cop with a thirst for Rolling Rock, an appetite for hoagies and a tendency to pronounce water more like wooder. John McWhorter discusses his hometown’s enigmatic accent and Winslet’s courageous attempt at imitating those impossibly difficult vowels.
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Jul 28, 2021 • 41min
English Has a Bee in Its Bonnet
Not all languages lend themselves to spelling competitions. Plus: A special subscriber-only bonus segment — get them all by becoming a paying subscriber to Lexicon Valley.
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Jul 6, 2021 • 38min
Russian Is My Mt. Everest
How the novel Anna Karenina sparked a quest to learn Tolstoy's native tongue.
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Jun 22, 2021 • 43min
Languages of Northern Africa
Berber, Somali and other fascinating languages of the region.
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Jun 8, 2021 • 45min
You’re Gonna Hafta
Linguistic inspiration from a television series about the Royal Family.
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