Lexicon Valley is a podcast about language, from pet peeves, syntax, and etymology to neurolinguistics and the death of languages. Hosted by linguist John McWhorter.
Old English was arguably more complicated than Modern English. Is that true of all languages?
28 Min
Sep 5, 2017
Languages across the world developed similar words for "mom" and "dad." How is that possible?
28 Min
Aug 22, 2017
The Language Conservancy's Wil Meya discusses the effort to revive Native American languages.
34 Min
Aug 8, 2017
John McWhorter interrupts the hosts of Unorthodox to discuss hallmarks and stereotypes of Jewish communication style.
John McWhorter talks to Ben Zimmer about the Vietnam Graffiti Project and other slangy topics.
John McWhorter discusses the near-futile impulse to determine what is, and what is not, a word.
John McWhorter discusses communication styles with linguist Deborah Tannen, author of You're the Only One I Can Tell: Inside the Language of Women's Friendships.
John McWhorter talks to linguist Neal Whitman about the mash-up of "hey" and "yo."
John McWhorter talks to sociolinguist Alexandra D'Arcy about the spike in our use of like.
John McWhorter discusses the subject of his new book, Talking Back, Talking Black: Truths About America's Lingua Franca.
Mark Seidenberg, author of Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can’t, and What Can Be Done About It, discusses the fallout from the so-called reading wars.
When "hath" gave way to "has," the original meaning of "merry," and other insights from popular Christmas carols.
In "Arrival," Amy Adams plays a linguist who discovers that language can radically alter one's perception of reality. But is that true?
Are the slang, sounds, and syntax of Black English a kind of lingua franca for America's youth?
What can we learn about English from Bill Clinton, the two Bushes, and other leaders of the free world?
How our rich and complex system of second person pronouns got whittled down to just "you."
What Bette Davis, FDR, and Ralph Kramden have in common when it comes to speech.
John McWhorter on what the intricacies of the future tense tell us about the unwritten rules of pronouns.
John Simpson, former editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, talks about life as a lexicographer.
What does "Hickory Dickory Dock" really mean? John McWhorter makes linguistic sense of seemingly arbitrary children's verse.
John McWhorter talks with author Jack Lynch about the sacrilege of modified Shakespeare.
Gretchen McCulloch talks to John McWhorter about the big meaning behind our favorite little pictograms.
Ann Patty, author of "Living With a Dead Language: My Romance With Latin," talks about her transformative experience of learning Latin.
Etymologist and poet Anatoly Liberman says that English is one of the most difficult languages to spell. But we can change that.
Benjamin K. Bergen, author of the upcoming What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves, discusses the science of cursing.
How an American Revolutionary War figure spawned a new name for a very old game.
Linguist John McWhorter argues that it makes perfect sense for the speech of black and white Americans to have subtle differences.
The earliest known citation for “shit show” is from an English-language translation of a 1970s criminal trial in Germany. But what was the word or phrase being translated?
A phrase with roots in Ancient Rome has confounded English speakers for centuries.
Donald Trump calls people (and publications) he doesn’t like sad. When did that word become an insult?
A peculiar insult from the north of England has the Oxford English Dictionary stumped.
A pronoun that English borrowed from its Scandinavian neighbors gets new life as a gender neutral alternative to he and she.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk about a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to editors at Oxford, Merriam-Webster, and Dictionary.com about their picks for Word of the Year.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the early 20th-century origins of a bizarre food-industry code with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a word that was popularized during the 1940s folk movement with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the etymological quirkiness of the word "pussy."
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a piece of old American slang with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to Jesse Sheidlower, author of The F-Word, about a recent discovery in the history of one our most enduring expletives.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the true story behind the most famous municipal nickname.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the origin of a Spanish-language pejorative with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss "A literary history of the strange expression 'what is it like?'"—an article by lexicographer Anne Seaton.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to journalist Jennifer Keishin Armstrong about the classic American sitcom Seinfeld and why it falls flat in other cultures and languages.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss what it means that language has a "positivity bias."
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to conlanger David J. Peterson about the art and craft of creating languages for Game of Thrones.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the origin of the word "seersucker" with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the origin of the word "pumpernickel" with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss whether "try and" is an acceptable substitute for "try to."
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the origin of the word "carnival" with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the authoress, the usherette, and the editrix with Anne Curzan, the lady professor.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to journalist and author Masha Gessen about translating Tolstoy.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo are joined by Peter Sokolowski of Merriam-Webster, Katherine Martin of Oxford University Press, Jane Solomon of Dictionary.com, and Erin McKean of Wordnik.com to discuss their respective Words of the Year.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to speech scientist Benjamin Munson about the "gay voice."
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo ask the question: How did we go from "four and twenty" to "twenty four"?
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to Jonathon Green, author of The Vulgar Tongue and Green's Dictionary of Slang, a 6,000-page, three-volume reference more than 20 years in the making.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss Sarah Palin's use of demonstrative pronouns.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to arts critic Nathan Rabin and journalist Christopher John Farley about the phrases they coined to identify two of Hollywood's most pernicious tropes.
Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield discuss a mystery word or phrase with Vocabulary.com executive producer Ben Zimmer.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to Columbia University professor John McWhorter about his new book, The Language Hoax.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss four legal cases in which the dictionary played a crucial part.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss JFK's Inaugural Address with Richard Tofel, author of Sounding the Trumpet.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to linguist Arika Okrent about the most logical language ever invented.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the relationship between tonal languages and musical acuity.
Mike Vuolo talks with an anthropological linguist about the influence geography might have on speech.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss curse words old and new with author Melissa Mohr.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the seemingly paradoxical phrase "yeah-no."
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a defining feature of the classic New York accent.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the debate over "illegal" versus "undocumented" at the heart of U.S. immigration policy.
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo speak with Nataly Kelly, coauthor of Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World.