This week, we're talking about some of the very oldest words in the English language, and how little some of them have changed over thousands of years.
We're dipping back into common rhetorical devices today, and talking about how they can be used to win people to your side... or at least make them laugh a little bit.
This week, Kathy and Ross quiz Fletcher on a list of words that may or may not have been coined by Shakespeare. You might be surprised by which ones we still use today.
Ouch! Unfortunately, we won't have an episode this week, because even more unfortunately, one of us had an accident and sustained a not-insignificant personal injury. Everything's basically ok, but, you know, it hurts, so we need a week off. So
We run through a few of the many, many English words that contain silent letters and some of the baffling reasons we pronounce those words the way we do.
We dig into why certain words are spelled ridiculously thanks to a bunch of scholars a few hundred years ago who got a little too nutso about making everything look Latin.
Some of us like to be rule breakers, but here are a few rules of the English language we can’t help but follow. And we probably don’t even know they exist.
We look at what happens when we approach non-English words with a little too much gusto, and how exactly we should be saying foreign words so that we don’t sound silly (a tall order for some of us!).
We look at unconscious ways we follow the rules of English by doubling sounds and words, and how meanings of words can change when we say them twice. Now: are you confused? Or are you confused confused?