What’s New
We go through a list of words people want to banish in 2026 and then take a swing over to the weird world of contractions. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!
We explore all sorts of love and love-related words as we honor St. Valentine (and some other unexpected saints).
We look at how much a word can change if we just give it a little nudge this way or that, which leads us into a discussion of how certain Arabic words made their way into English.
We look at the top 10 most commonly misspelled words. Watch those double letters!
It’s been a strange winter so far, so let’s talk about some strange winter words! Brrrrrrrrrr!!!
We indulge in one of our favorite pastimes: quibbling over tiny differences in the way people say things. What fun!
We all like to feel a bit fancy from time to time, but when we turn to French, it can get us in trouble.
We continue our annual tradition of looking back at the words that defined the year, as chosen by dictionaries, listeners… and us!
As we reach the end of the year, we get some grab-bag whiplash with English questions and conundrums from all over the language spectrum.
This week, we look at some words that have come unstuck in time.
We extend our quiz about abbreviated words into a second episode, and Kathy learns that people don’t always do things just to look fancy (a lot of the time they do, though!).
We answer a few listener questions, including one about a changing pronunciation that drives one person nuts, and another about abbreviations that leads us to some surprising (and confusing) places.
In celebration of Thanksgiving and all the food that comes with it, we’ll take an etymological trip around the dinner plate.
After an extended discussion about plurals, Kathy and Ross give Fletcher a wide-ranging quiz on grammar, pronunciation, etymology, and whatever else they decide to throw at him.
We return to our series looking at the hardest words ever found on the SAT by exploring the letter “G.”
We mark Día de los Muertos with some words about the dead, some of which have been brought back to life, and some that should have remained dead.
We celebrate the season by taking a look at the origins of some Halloween-related words, and we introduce two of the most horrifying words we’ve ever had on the show. Boo!
We return to one of our favorite topics: the surprising and strange origins of everyday words
Getting a Little Too Fancy After we talk a bit about some British/American English pronunciation differences, we’ll take a look at a few words that listeners think are simply too fancy to be used as often as they are.Pet Peeve-a-Palooza! (Part 2) We continue sifting through the language complaints that drive our listeners up the wall.
Pet Peeve-a-Palooza! (Part 1) We’ve been asking, you’ve delivered! It’s time to tackle our pile of listener pet peeves. Get ready to be annoyed! (In a good way.)Calques We look at word-for-word translations from other languages that become common phrases in English Getting an F on the SAT No, this time the F isn’t for for Fail, it’s for Fun! And Fantastic! And Fabulous! We return to our series looking at the hardest words ever found on the SAT with a dive into the English alphabet’s sixth letter.Irish Names Are My Pet Piamh A listener email prompts us to try to get a handle on Irish spellings and pronunciations. It doesn’t go well!An E-Prime Cut of Beef What happens when you remove an entire verb from the English language? Chaos! Well, not quite. But it used to cause Kathy quite a bit of consternation. Also: we try to nail down the correct spellings of various grunts and murmurs.In the Heighths We tackle a few listener emails about some unusual pet peeves, including people tacking an extra sound on the end of the word “height,” and another wondering why people say they want to “try and” do something.Pet Peeves for Persnickety Pedants We’ll dive into some common mistakes and pet peeves we have regarding the literary world, and then Kathy and Ross challenge Fletcher to another round of “Related… Or NOT??”The Graham Cracker Rule of ‘Those Ones’ Pet peeves, grammar groaners, and other language catastrophes are on the agenda this week, as we come up with a rock-solid rule grammatical rule that no one will ever question or disagree with.
The Secret of -nym Homonyms, synonyms, antonyms… we’ll look at some “wordly” similarities and differences, and explore the vague space in between.American History Needs a Little Copy Editing We’ll look at some questionable language decisions the American Founding Fathers made when writing some of the country’s most important documents.Suffix Fight! Collectable or collectible? Why is it a computer and not a computor? Or is it? We look at the confusing and sometimes (seemingly) chaotic world of suffixes.The Debatables When we disagree about what a word means or how to pronounce it, how do we know who’s right and who’s wrong? And what if we’re both right?Dislocate Your Syntax, Not Your Shoulder After entertaining a few more listener pet peeves, we jump into a discussion on right and left dislocation in syntax, and then touch on the always entertaining world of nominative determinism (wait till you hear about the guy who invented the toilet!).7 genius responses to ‘put rude people in their place,’ according to communication experts (CNBC Make It)