There’s an old children’s ditty that goes, “Mama had a baby and its head popped off,” which you sing while popping the top off of a dandelion or similar flower. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Its Head...
How do children acquire language? Do they start with nouns, like “Mama” and “cat,” then graduate to verbs and other parts of speech? Grant explains that language acquisition starts even earlier, with children simply emulating...
What’s your choice for 2010’s word of the year? Mama grizzly? Starwhacker? Who could forget vuvuzela? Martha and Grant discuss the five-oh in Hawaii 5-0, and whether the tagline “I approve this message” is grammatical. Also...
What’s your choice for the word or phrase that best captures the zeitgeist of 2010? Grant shares some of his “word of the year” candidates, including refudiate, mama grizzly, starwhacker, and of course, vuvuzela. This is part of a...
Here’s a question more and more same-sex couples face when starting a family: What names will our child call us? “Mommy and Mama”? “Mommy and Jane?” Maybe a made-up name? An Ohio woman and her female partner are...
A Minnesotan has been observing his infant babbling, and wonders if words like “mama” and “papa” arise from sounds that babies naturally make anyway. Are there some words or sounds that are instinctive? Or do babies only...