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181. Cairns

There's an abiding myth that the landmark dictionaries are the work of one man, in a dusty paper-filled garrett tirelessly working away But really it took a village: behind every Big D

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180. Project ENABLE

Sterling Martin was in grad school, studying C. elegans worms, when COVID19 hit and suddenly he found himself in lexicography, as part of a team creating a Navajo-English dictionary of science terms.B

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83: How kids learn Q’anjob’al and other Mayan languages - Interview with Pedro Mateo Pedro

Young kids growing up in Guatemala often learn Q’anjob’al, Kaq’chikel, or another Mayan language from their families and communities. But they don’t live next to the kinds of major research universiti

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179. Andy Quiz

It's the annual etymology quizlusionist! I’m on a family holiday for the first time since 1988, so enlisted my brother Andy Zaltzman of the Bugle podcast to test his/your wits on singing goats, explos

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79: A.I. Hype Hosedown (with Emily Bender and Jack Hessel)

Daniel Midgley, Ben Ainslie, and Hedvig Skirgård

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Audio description: putting art into words

Lonny Evans audio describes in theatres and museums, and Terry James, who is vision impaired, trains audio describers. They talk to Michael about their work.Producer Sally Heaven

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82: Frogs, pears, and more staples from linguistics example sentences

Linguists are often interested in comparing several languages or dialects. To make this easier, it’s useful to have data that’s relatively similar across varieties, so that the differences really pop

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Interpreting Presidents Putin and Zelensky

Irina Morgan is a high level interpreter. Being bi-lingual in Russian and Ukrainian means she's in demand whenever Vladimir Putin or President Zelensky give a press conference requiring simultaneous i

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Decoder Ring: The Great Parmesan Cheese Debate

Parmesan is a food—but it’s not just a food. Italy’s beloved cheese is often paired with a deep craving for tradition and identity. But its history also involves intrepid immigrants, lucrative busines

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How To! Sleep Apart to Save Your Relationship

Sleep is objectively worse when splitting a bed. Yet that’s the default for most couples. But that doesn’t mean sharing the covers is easy. Especially when one person is having trouble falling or stay

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Learning Yiddish

Michael Rosen is learning Yiddish. Every Sunday, he joins other adults in an evening class, conjugating verbs and practising rhymes.For this episode of Word of Mouth, he invites his teacher, Tamara Mi

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Hear Me Out: You Need To Care About Meghan Markle

On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… royal pains.The British Royals are far from the imperial power they once were. Whether you love the institution, hate it, or simply don’t care, it’s hard to deny tha

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The Marvels of Translation: Interview with Keith Khan-Harris

What can we learn about the nature of translation by reading a warning message in hundreds of different languages? In this episode, Keith Kahn-Harris discusses his latest book, The Babel Message, in w

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What Next: Beyond Biden vs. Trump

America’s electoral system casts third-party candidates as spoilers—but what would it take to open the door to not just a third party, but a fourth or more?Guest: Lee Drutman, senior f

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Hear Me Out: Insurrection Is A Force For Good

On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… don’t you know they’re talking bout a 4th celebrates one of the least bloody milestones of the American Revolution. But we have a complicated relatio

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Hang Up and Listen: The Sports Culture Power Rankings

Josh Levin and Stefan Fatsis are joined by TV producer Mike Schur for a special episode: a debate on which sports have generated the best art and made the greatest contributions to culture. Topics dis

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Oh For Cute (Rebroadcast) - 3 July 2023

A stereotype is a preconceived notion about a person or group. Originally, though, the word stereotype referred to a printing device used to produce lots of identical copies. • The link between tiny m

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78: Forensic Linguistics, Really (with Helen Fraser, Georgina Heydon, Diana Eades, Seán Rob

For decades, forensic linguists have been pushing back on harmful language ideologies, and fighting for better representation for linguistic minorities in the legal domain. We're talking to three lege

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Hear Me Out: Patriarchy Hurts All Of Us — Including Men

On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… gendering, everywhere, all at once.In the final days of Pride Month, we wanted to turn our attention to another complicated and contentious facet of the LGBT+ dialog

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Coinkydink (Rebroadcast) - 26 June 2023

Sometimes it’s a challenge to give a book a chance: How many pages should you read before deciding it’s not worth your time? There’s a new formula to help with that decision — and it’s all based on yo

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178. Uranus

Have you ever wondered why the planets in our solar system are all named after Roman deities, except two of them?One of those exceptions is Earth. The other is Uranus.Content note: there are mentions

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Instrumental, masse, med brask og bram

Kan Erling Braut Haaland omtales som instrumental? Hva er forskjellen på mange, mye og masse? Og hvor kommer uttrykket med brask og bram fra? I panelet: Ellen Andenæs, Jan Kristian Hognestad og Leiv I

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Hear Me Out: Descendants Of Slaves Don’t Need Reparations

On today’s episode of Hear Me Out…an archaeology of grievances.In honor of the third Juneteenth being celebrated as a national holiday, it’s worth unpacking symbolic gestures like Juneteenth — and, as

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Spinning Cookies - 19 June 2023

A book of photographs and essays by famous writers celebrates libraries--and the librarians who changed their lives. Plus cutting doughnuts, spinning cookies, and pulling brodies: There are lots of wa

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Tasjlat, sikkert og forsømme seg

har en eksotisk lyd, som også finnes i språk fra Ringenes herre. Hva er betydningen av å forsømme seg, og kan ulik tolkning føre til uvennskap? Det er ikke sikkert at alt er like sikk

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81: The verbs had been being helped by auxiliaries

In the sentence “the horse has eaten an apple”, what is the word “has” doing? It’s not expressing ownership of something, like in “the horse has an apple”. (After all, the horse could have very sneaki

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77: Big Tent (live with Aris Clemons, Caitlin Green, Rikker Dockum, and friends)

How do we make the discipline of linguistics — and our world — a more just, diverse, and equitable place? Why does our personal history and personal perspective matter when doing science? How do we bu

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Hear Me Out: A Little Racism Can Be A Good Thing

On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… Racism Lite.Racial politics is responsible for a lot of ugliness, in the United States and around the world. Humans want, and even need, to sort themselves into cate

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What Next: The Liberal Case Against Affirmative Action

If the Supreme Court rules against affirmative action for certain racial groups, as expected, how will colleges and other institutions create diverse student bodies and address racial

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Up Your Alley (Rebroadcast) - 12 June 2023

Martha and Grant have book including a collection of short stories inspired by dictionaries, and a for teens. Or, how about novels with an upbeat message? Publishers c

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Gay Animals

This is the in which I, Helen Zaltzman, say a load of words which aren’t really about anything, so that your brain gets a little gentle diversion from thinking and/or feeling. Today

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Mast, Knullskardet og en whisky

Young kids growing up in Guatemala often learn Q’anjob’al, Kaq’chikel, or another Mayan language from their families and communities. But they don’t live next to the kinds of major research universiti3