In Lexicat part 1, we met the author Mary Robinette Kowal and her cat Elsie, and learned about how they... more

Elsie the cat has a set of 120 buttons programmed with words. She uses them to lie, swear, apologise, express... more

In 15th and 16th century Scotland, in the highest courts of the land, you'd find esteemed poets hurling insults at... more

There's so much more to say about Singlish after last episode that we're saying some more of it this episode.... more

"If you grow up being told that one of your first languages, Singlish, is actually a bad version of an... more

This is the Tranquillusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, give your brain a break by temporarily supplanting your interior monologue... more

I can scarce believe that I've made 200 episodes of this show, but here we are! To celebrate, here is... more

Next episode is the 200th, therefore this is the 199th. I raid the 66 pages of ideas for episodes I... more

Since 2019, Marwan Kaabour has been collecting Arabic slang words used by and about queer people, first for the online... more

At the Scripps National Spelling Bee, behind the spectacle of kids vying to be champion spellers, a whole lot of... more

I went to the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee, to marvel at kids spelling words I had mostly never even... more

Cain's Jawbone, a murder mystery cryptic puzzle novella in the form of 100 pages presented in the wrong order, has... more

Exciting things have been happening with crossword puzzles in the US: more constructors, more outlets to get puzzles published, clues... more

AJ Jacobs makes The Puzzler podcast, wrote The Puzzler book, and sometimes turns his whole life into a puzzle. He... more

This episode, and the next couple of episodes, are about word games! Today, Joshua Blackburn recounts how his sons' uninspiring... more

The word 'hypochondria' has travelled from meaning physical ailments in a particular region of your body, to ones that are... more

"It's quite a big undertaking going through every named feature in the whole solar system and trying to find out... more

This is the Tranquillusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, soothe your brain by saying a load of words that don’t... more

At Lunar New Year, certain foods are particularly lucky to eat. Why? Because in Chinese, their names are puns on... more

Lipreading has been in the news this month, thanks to gossip-stoking mouth movements at the Golden Globes that the amateur... more

It's our annual end of year parade of all the extra good stuff this year's podguests talked about, including a... more

We’ve got knitting! We’ve got eponyms!! We’ve got knitting eponyms!!! Which come with a whole load of battles, f-boys, duels,... more

We’re returning to the theme of renaming, for two food-related renamings: the first one that mostly happened, the second that... more

The word 'misophonia' describes a condition that statistically, 20 per cent of you have: an extreme reaction to certain sounds.... more

All aboard, we're off to the 2023 Apple Festival at the University of British Columbia, to taste some apples and,... more

When Spanish missionaries arrived in what is now called Florida, there were 100,000-200,000 Timucua people in the region. Just two... more

Lexicographer, author and Dictionary Corner resident Susie Dent has been studying words to make us feel happy. She brings etymologies... more

There's an abiding myth that the landmark dictionaries are the work of one man, in a dusty paper-filled garrett tirelessly... more

Sterling Martin was in grad school, studying C. elegans worms, when COVID19 hit and suddenly he found himself in lexicography,... more

It's the annual etymology quizlusionist! I’m on a family holiday for the first time since 1988, so enlisted my brother... more

Have you ever wondered why the planets in our solar system are all named after Roman deities, except two of... more

This is the Tranquillusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, say a load of words which aren’t really about anything, so... more

“The starting point is, and the research questions are all framed by: 'We know it's terrible to be fat, but... more

It should just be an accurate descriptor of my body, but the word 'fat' has shaped so much more of... more

Oh, you thought the Eurovision Song Contest was about songs? Or a fun international TV event that brings people together... more

There aren't many multilingual, multinational television shows that have been running for nearly seven decades. But what makes the Eurovision... more

"You can't redead the dead by you saying something shit," says Cariad Lloyd of Griefcast and author of You Are... more

"The myths, or the received wisdom, about Portuguese language in Brazil is that, of course we know we speak a... more

Last episode, I mentioned that in London, Ontario, in 2019 a 9-year-old named Lyla Wheeler had launched a petition to... more

Over the past few years, numerous products and places with the word 'plantation' in their names have rebranded. As for... more

Erwin Schrödinger is one of the "fathers of quantum mechanics". He also sexually abused children. Trinity College Dublin recently denamed... more

There’s been a recurring theme on the show over the years, of filling gaps in language, removing stigma and bias,... more

What do the hippocampus, homophones, Little Women, worrying and egg hacks have in common? They all star in the 2022... more

“I don't think that anyone should come away from this conversation not wanting to use the name Fiona. I think... more

A lot of people assume that Fiona is a very old Scottish name, but the first known Scottish Fiona is... more

When is a war not a war? When the British Empire called it an 'emergency' so they didn't have to... more

Provoked by current events, we've got three political eponyms for turmoiled times. Get ready for explosives, presidential pigs, Supreme Court... more

Self-help is a multibillion dollar genre of books, and Kristen Meinzer and Jolenta Greenberg of By the Book podcast have... more

Empathy and kindness can be noble concepts in themselves, but as terms are thrown around enough to have become buzzwords,... more

“Anxiety is the parrot sidekick that rides on my shoulder and occasionally squawks warnings in my ear,” says Tim Clare,... more

Grab your stake and crucifix pendant, we're going vampire-hunting! Well, vampire-etymology-hunting. The podcast Buffering the Vampire Slayer, which recaps the... more

There's lots of fun etymology of creatures and a lot of fun etymology derived from creatures, and now it is... more

This is the Tranquillusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, say a load of deliberately boring words to distract your interior... more

The term 'queerbaiting' has evolved from meaning entrapment to marketing ploy to drawing "queer audiences into a piece of media... more

From whitewash (the paint) we got whitewashing (the covering up of misdeeds) and from there greenwashing, redwashing, bluewashing, purplewashing, pinkwashing... more

The name Tiffany has been around for some 800 years. But you can't name a character in a historical novel... more

Couple of easy straightforward questions for us to chew on: 1. What is ‘objectivity’ supposed to mean? And 2. does... more

Chinese is one of the oldest still-spoken languages in the world. But when technologies arrived like telegraphy and computing, designed... more

Hans Asperger would have been merely "a footnote in the history of autism", so why did he get to be... more

Hans Asperger would have been merely "a footnote in the history of autism", so why did he get to be... more