In the 19th century, the Oxford English Dictionary was a bit like the Wikipedia of its day, in that much of its information was crowdsourced, gathered by thousands of volunteers. Linguist and lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie tells the stories of many of...
A sixth-grade teacher from San Antonio, Texas, says he and his students are reading The Lord of the Rings. They’re curious about the words attercop, which means “spider” (and a relative of the word cobweb) and Tomnoddy, which means “fool.” Grant...
Plenty of people write to dictionary editors asking for words to be added. It almost never works. But what if politicians make a special request? To urge adoption of the term upstander, as in “the opposite of bystander,” to honor those who stand up...
Grant recommends the new book, OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word by Allan Metcalf. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Allan Metcalf Book Recommendation” Martha, I want to share this book with you. I just got it in...
Martha and Grant discuss some other Word of the Year candidates, including hockey mom and hypermiling. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Hypermiling” Hockey mom will probably be another big word of the year choice for a lot of...
Great news for language fans: The Australian National Dictionary is now available online for free. It’s full of fascinating words from Down Under. Contrary to what you might think, for example, kangaroosters are pouchless and feather-free, and a...
