Podcast Episodes
Back to Search
The Lost Genders of Old English: Why Nouns Had Sex Before Modern English
Episode 40
Old English once assigned every noun a masculine, feminine, or neuter gender that shaped its adjectives and pronouns. In this episode we trace how th…
6 days, 6 hours ago
Old English’s Patchwork: How Four Kingdoms Shaped the Language
Episode 39
Explore how the four main Anglo‑Saxon dialects—West Saxon, Mercian, Northumbrian, and Kentish—competed for prestige, driving linguistic change that s…
6 days, 6 hours ago
Paston Letters: A Window Into Everyday 15th‑Century English
Episode 38
Uncover how the Paston family’s handwritten letters from 1422‑1509 reveal spelling, vocabulary, and grammatical shifts in late Middle English—showing…
6 days, 6 hours ago
English Takes the Lead in Science: From Latin to Modern Research
Episode 37
We trace how English rose from a regional tongue into the world’s lingua franca of science—examining Latin’s decline, the impact of two world wars, A…
6 days, 6 hours ago
From Angles to England: Tracing the Birth of a Nation’s Name
Episode 36
Explore how the Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes forged the name ‘England’ through migration, conquest, and linguistic blending. From early Anglo‑S…
6 days, 7 hours ago
Prompting Language: How AI Is Reshaping English
Episode 35
In this episode we trace how artificial intelligence has injected fresh vocabulary—prompt, hallucination, token—into everyday English, accelerated by…
6 days, 7 hours ago
Teenager: From Old English Suffix to 20th‑Century Social Category
Episode 34
Explore how the term ‘teenager’ evolved from a linguistic suffix into a postwar social category that transformed advertising, education, and law in A…
6 days, 7 hours ago
From Lens to Lexicon: How ‘Telescope’ Became Everyday English
Episode 33
In this episode we trace the Dutch‑origin word telescope from its 17th‑century Greek roots through scientific papers, printing presses, and Shakespea…
6 days, 7 hours ago
Royal Etymology: From Latin Regalis to English Prestige
Episode 32
Explore how the word ‘royal’ traveled from its Latin roots through Norman French into modern English, layering prestige over native terms and shaping…
6 days, 8 hours ago
Cheque vs Check: The Spelling Split That Maps English’s Global Journey
Episode 31
From a chess move to bank orders, the word ‘check’ split into ‘cheque’ in Britain and ‘check’ in America. This episode traces how printing, dictionar…
6 days, 8 hours ago