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Lexicon Valley is a podcast dissecting this messy, maddening and thoroughly wonderful thing we call language.

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You Get the Gist

PODCAST EPISODE

You Get the Gist

During an appearance on The Gist with Mike Pesca, we discussed the curious backstory of, you guessed it, the word gist.

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· 13 min 16 sec

00:00 13:16
-30s +30s

A prolific writer on men's fashion, Guy discusses the vocabulary of outerwear and why dress is a form of social language. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios...

· 19 min 53 sec

The world was shocked by a controversial article published by "John McWhorter." Here, he sets the record straight. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/Le...

· 30 min 12 sec

Raise a glass to browned bread ... now you're toast! X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone....

· 30 min 8 sec

Oxford English Dictionary editor Fiona McPherson talks to Mike Vuolo about the terms that caught her attention in 2025. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.c...

· 16 min 58 sec

About Lexicon Valley

A close examination of language — its power to inform and misinform, to elucidate and obfuscate. Founded in 2012, the erudite and irreverent audio show Lexicon Valley analyzes the words and phrases that dominate our discourse and make the headlines.

John McWhorter (host) teaches linguistics at Columbia University and writes a column for the New York Times. He earned a PhD in Linguistics from Stanford University and is the author of several books, including The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language, Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter and Word on the Street, about dialects and Black English.

Mike Vuolo (host) is the editor of Lexicon Valley and founder of Booksmart Studios. Born into a family of Italians and Jews, his childhood was filled with exaggerated hand gestures and hysterical worry, now channeled productively into audio. Vuolo has produced programs for Slate and WNYC. His crossword puzzles have appeared in outlets including The New York Times.

Bob Garfield (host) is an essayist, pundit, and inveterate caster, both broadly and podly. A former correspondent for NPR’s All Things Considered and longtime co-host of WNYC’s award-winning On the Media, Garfield is also the dashing and arthritic author of books including American Manifesto: Saving Democracy from Villains, Vandals and Ourselves.

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