Podcast Episodes

You speak more Ancient Greek than you think | GREEK WORDS IN ENGLISH

Episode 106

English is enriched with a plethora of words from Ancient Greek, whether they were pilfered straight from source, or absorbed via Latin, French or A…

2 days, 20 hours ago

View Episode

Denny's used to be called Danny's | BRAND NAME ORIGINS

Episode 105

Rob and Jess are investigating how some of the world's biggest brands got their names.
📸 Does KODAK mean anything?
🍟 Which Wendy is Wendy's named afte…

1 week, 2 days ago

View Episode

Who is Sydney named after? | CITY NAME ORIGINS

Episode 104

Let's explore city names in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and beyond in another etymological journey around the world. 

🇦🇺 Is Darwin really named af…

2 weeks, 2 days ago

View Episode

How to read hieroglyphs | ANCIENT WRITING

Episode 103

Rob and Jess are exploring the writing systems of the ancient world.
𓀀 How do hieroglyphs work?
✍️ When did writing first begin?
🫆 And how did we solve…

3 weeks, 2 days ago

View Episode

What's the French for "raining cats and dogs"? | WORLD IDIOMS

Episode 102

Let's explore some funny sayings from around the world. In this episode, Rob and Jess discover other languages' equivalents of phrases like "raining…

1 month ago

View Episode

100 quick-fire word facts | 100th EPISODE

Episode 101

Rob and Jess are celebrating 100 episodes of Words Unravelled by sharing their top 100 wordy nerdy facts.

🎥 WATCH THIS EPISODE: https://youtu.be/1PM_…

1 month, 1 week ago

View Episode

Which German terms are in the English zeitgeist? | GERMAN WORDS

Episode 100

Willkommen! Jess and Rob are exploring the German words in English. In this Zeitgeisty episode, discover:

👻 What doppelgänger literally means,
📏 The l…

1 month, 3 weeks ago

View Episode

Why is English full of Latin? | LATIN WORDS

Episode 99

You speak more Latin than you think. Not only are the many French words in English derived from Latin, but almost 30% of our vocabulary comes direct…

2 months ago

View Episode

Are sharks named after people? | OCEAN WORDS

Episode 98

Rob and Jess are taking the deepest of dives into the origins of words from the ocean.
🐟 Are many fish 'fish' or 'fishes'?
🦈 Why is there a mystery ar…

2 months, 1 week ago

View Episode

Does 'Abracadabra' mean anything? | MAGIC WORDS

Episode 97

Take a pinch of witchcraft, add a touch of sorcery, and "Hey presto!" you have a wordy nerdy episode about magical terms.

🧙 Can only women be witches…

2 months, 2 weeks ago

View Episode