Podcast Episodes
Back to Search107: Linguaphile (with Julie Sedivy and Matt Spike)
Language is a lot like love. You can enjoyably lose yourself in both. They can both be dangerous. And they both entail a responsibility to keep each other safe. A new book Linguaphile: A Life of Lang…
Published on 1 year ago
106: What One Thing? (with Mark Ellison)
What one thing explains the most about language?
Here to answer that question is linguist and friend of the pod Dr Mark Ellison — and many of our listeners and friends. It's one of our Deck Chats! Gr…
Published on 1 year, 1 month ago
105 or 500 (live with Kelly Wright and friends)
For our 500th episode, we got together with our great listeners for their words, stories, and inspiration. It's a look back at the show, a look at language from our friends' point of view, and a cele…
Published on 1 year, 2 months ago
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 d…
Published on 1 year, 2 months ago
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 Ru…
Published on 1 year, 3 months ago
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…
Published on 1 year, 3 months ago
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 …
Published on 1 year, 4 months ago
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…Published on 1 year, 5 months ago
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…
Published on 1 year, 5 months ago
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?…
Published on 1 year, 5 months ago