The 5-Minute Linguist is a book of short, accessible essays by linguists who answer the questions they commonly hear from laypersons. For example, what’s the difference between a language and a dialect? What causes someone to have a...
On our Facebook group, Brett asks: “What do you call a society run by rabbits?” A carrotocracy? How about a whatsupdocracy? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Carrotocracy” On our Facebook group, Brett Palmer...
A Houston, Texas, woman wants to know, “Why are there so many different dictionaries?” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Why Are There So Many Dictionaries?” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hey, this is...
Have a question about objective pronouns? Whom ya gonna call? Wait–is that right? Or would it be “who ya gonna call”? “Whom” may be technically correct, but insisting on it can get you called an elitist. It’s...
Did the movie Avatar make you imagine creating an entirely new language, like Na’vi? Conlang.org and the Language Creation Society have plenty of information on how to go about it and what others, including J.R.R. Tolkein have tried. Mark...
We all know that the color pink is for boys and the color blue is for girls — at least, that’s how it was 100 years ago. Grant and Martha share the surprising history behind the colors we associate with gender. Plus, we go rollin’ in our...