Episode 101: Parabola/Parable
The meanings of "parabola" and "parable" have very little to do with one another, yet these words are etymological doublets of a single Greek work, pa...
Words for Granted - An etymology and linguistics podcast
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About
Words for Granted is a podcast that looks at how words change over time. Host Ray Belli uses linguistic evolution as a way of understanding larger historical and cultural changes.
Episode 100: Google
Before Google was the name of one of the world's biggest tech companies, "googol" was an obscure math term that meant "ten to the one hundredth power"...
Episode 99: Average
The word "average" has anything but an average etymology. If the leading theory is correct, "average" ultimately derives from an Arabic word meaning "...
Why Is English Highly Irregular? (Interview with Arika Okrent)
English may be spoken by a whopping 1.5 billion ESL speakers around the world, but that doesn't mean it's an "easy" language to learn. For native Engl...
Episode 98: Lost Letters: Long s (ſ) and Ampersand (&)
In many English works printed before the late 19th century, a letter unfamiliar to us today, ſ, is often used in place of the letter S. However, that ...
Episode 97: Lost Letters: Ash (Æ, æ) and Ethel (Œ, œ)
If you've ever encountered the ligatures æ and œ in old texts, you may have wondered: what are they called? Where do they come from? How exactly are t...
Nine Nasty Words: Interview with John McWhorter (EXPLICIT)
F*ck. Sh*t. C*nt. These are some of the most profane words in the English language, but what exactly makes them profane? Is there something about pro...
Episode 96: Lost Letters: Wynn (Ƿ), Insular G (Ᵹ), Yogh (Ȝ)
Before the letter W was invented, the rune wynn was borrowed into the Latin AngloSaxon alphabet as a way of representing the /w/ sound. The letter yog...
Interview with Ralph Keyes, Author of "The Hidden History of Coined Words"
In this episode, I speak with author Ralph Keyes. Ralph's new book, The Hidden History of Coined Words, is an exuberant celebration of the malleabilit...
Latin 101 Course Announcement!
Words for Granted has partnered with Rebecca Deitsch (Harvard University) to offer a Latin 101 course to listeners. To learn more and RSVP, please fil...