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Welcome to the Valley!
Lexicon Valley is an audio show dissecting this messy, maddening and thoroughly wonderful thing we call language.
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Why is ph pronounced that way? The answer is positively phantastic. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 43 min 49 sec
We revisit the popular notion that our language helps shapes our worldview. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 44 min 34 sec
The word transient reveals some enduring patterns in English pronunciation and etymology. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 36 min 18 sec
What an ancient, undecipherable manuscript says—and doesn't say—about Latin and its spawn. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 41 min 22 sec
The letter R has a habit of intruding on spoken English. How come? Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 45 min 1 sec
A linguistic mystery in the Lesser Sunda Islands. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 43 min 53 sec
A conversation with Gaston Dorren, author of Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 33 min 28 sec
Tonal languages evolved mostly in hot and humid places. What would explain that? Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 42 min 27 sec
What we can learn about English from am, the seemingly simplest verb. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 35 min 52 sec
Where did Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic and their kin originate? And what is a triconsonantal root? Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 41 min 31 sec
How an old word for child morphed into a versatile, and very modern, suffix. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Email: lexiconvalley@slate.com
· 39 min 10 sec
Some more of the many ways that neologisms form. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 40 min 51 sec
An actually very literal discussion of true words. Really! Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Email: lexiconvalley@slate.com Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 36 min 20 sec
English speakers have been toying with the F-word for centuries. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 42 min 47 sec
A New Year's meditation on a joyful word. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 34 min 29 sec
A conversation with Lane Greene, author of Talk on the Wild Side, about the "vague and anarchic" nature of language. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartst...
· 35 min 52 sec
Our speech is becoming more childlike, but not for the reasons you think. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 37 min 55 sec
How far back can we trace, with any accuracy, the spoken word? Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 43 min 37 sec
How long have we been starting our sentences with "so"? Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 35 min 44 sec
John McWhorter discusses the evolution of the word like. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley
· 28 min 41 sec