Tagsyllable

Lesser Greek Gods

Listeners continue to invent names of Greek gods by pronouncing familiar words with the accent on the wrong syllable. There’s Mediocrities, god of “things that are just pretty much okay”; Lotteries, “the god of random...

Pronouncing “Leicester”

Sean in Asheville, North Carolina, wonders how to pronounce the nearby town of Leicester. Say it the way the locals do. It’s part of a family of British place names affected by vowel reduction and haplology, the omission of a sound or syllable...

Episode 1523

Kids Are Asking

Questions from young listeners and conversations about everything from shifting slang to a bizarre cooking technique. Kids ask about how to talk about finding information on the internet, how tartar sauce got its name, and if the expression high and...

Pronouncing “Nevada”

How do you pronounce the name of the state Nevada? Steven, a Nevada native now living in Baltimore, Maryland, says he’s forever encountering people who pronounce the name of his home state incorrectly, with an ah sound in the middle. The a in...