Lexicon Valley

As a daily listener to WNYC Public Radio in New York City, John has noticed that a certain announcer frequently mispronounces words on air. He has thoughts. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Working backwards from existing languages, linguists have had great success reconstructing Proto-Indo-European. Does that mean we can do the same for all language families? X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A cyclone came through and blew off most of English’s clothes, says John, in Part II of his discussion of Indo-European. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are at least five defining features among hundreds of related languages from English to Hindi to Russian. And what does any of that have to do with the Hittites? X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The simple verb to go quickly gets complex in just about any language and English is no exception. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does the bat in “acrobat” have to do with the word come? X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reflexive pronouns are redundant in a way, sure, but they’re also quite common in many languages. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s good reason to believe that sophisticated speech began long before homo sapiens hit the scene. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does Ayesha Rascoe have a good radio voice? Not according to many NPR listeners, who find her loud, high-pitched and generally grating. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A recent study suggests that a new dialect is emerging in the southern part of Florida. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The trial transcript of a 225-year-old murder is filled with fascinating evidence of the way we used to talk. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many English verbs have three forms — sing, sang and sung, for example. The problem is that speakers seem to want only two. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Too — whether about excess, addition or contradiction — evolved from to. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some languages adopt their “health” word from the concept of wholeness — a metaphor that makes perfect sense. Other languages, however, adopt their “health” word from trees. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Like the French word droit, English’s right has taken on a number of useful metaphorical meanings. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this favorite from the archives, John discusses some unwritten rules of English that can be remarkably difficult for a learner of English to master. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The word “record” can be broken down into two parts, the re and the cord. But what do those parts even mean? X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An encore presentation of a much loved episode about the speech patterns of Bette Davis, George Gershwin, Louis Armstrong and countless other Americans of the 1930s. Why do they all sound like that? X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So many of our words have ugly associations that are particular to a historical time or event. Should we expunge them entirely from our vocabulary? Can we? X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Words that come to mean “want” often start out meaning something else. Take “want,” for example. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices