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When there are no safe spaces, language is a refuge, a lifeline, a keeper of secrets. Read more
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Polari
When there are no safe spaces, language is a refuge, a lifeline, a keeper of secrets.
Two or More
In its fairly short existence, the word 'bisexual' has had a pretty bumpy ride.
Blood is not Water
The Yiddish word for ‘black’ is a slur. How to translate Black Lives Matter without it?
Verisimilitude
A lot - a LOT! - of work goes into inventing languages for fictional worlds.
In Character
Chinese is one of the oldest still-spoken languages in the world.
Project ENABLE
Sterling Martin was studying worms, when suddenly he found himself making a dictionary.
Cairns
Behind every Great Man of Lexicography was usually a team of women making his dictionary.
Siblings of Chaos
Dictionary Corner resident Susie Dent has been studying words to make us feel happy.
Timucua
Decoding and translating 400-year-old texts to understand the lost Timucua language
Misophonia
Misophonia is a condition that 20% of you have: an extreme reaction to certain sounds.
Gems and Patties
Two food-related renamings: one that mostly happened, another that mostly did not
How the Dickens Stole Christmas
How come Charles Dickens's name is synonymous with Christmas?
Ravels
Why your cardigan is called 'cardigan'
Bonus 2023
It's our annual parade of all the extra good stuff this year's podguests talked about
The Eggs Warning
"Warning: read and keep," says the piece of paper inside Kinder Eggs, in 34 languages
Lipread
How lipreading works, and why lipreading gossip stories are so successful and worthless
Mouthful of Fortune
At Lunar New Year, certain foods are particularly lucky to eat. Why? Because puns.
Tranquillusionist: Person In Scene
Soothe your brain with a meaningless list of characters without names in movie credits
Craters
PhD student Annie Lennox discovered a crater on Mercury and got the chance to name it
Hypochondria
Hypochondria's meaning went from physical ailments to ones that are only in your mind
Word Play 2
Makers of word games explain how they turn language into creative play
Lemon Demon
AJ Jacobs makes word puzzles, and sometimes turns his whole life into a puzzle.
Good Grids
Exciting things have been happening with crossword puzzles in the US
100 Pages of Solvitude
Comedian John Finnemore spent six months solving a 100-page puzzle. Then he wrote his own.
Beeing
I went to the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee
Word Sport
At the Scripps National Spelling Bee it's a lot of work to make words into this word sport
Queer Arab Glossary
Designer and artist Marwan Kababour collects Arabic-language queer slang
199 ideas I hadn't made into podcasts yet
199 ideas that I have not yet made into podcasts (except for this one)
200th Episode Celebratory Quiz
A quiz about language where all the questions were set by beautiful brainy listeners
Tranquillusionist: Ex-Constellations
Constellations that got demoted into ex-constellations
Singlish
About Singlish, and the complicated language situation in Singapore
