“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

Bad hats, cat's pyjamas, banting, goops, creatures, and playing possum - what WERE people going on about during the Golden... more

"Warning: read and keep," says the piece of paper inside Kinder Surprise Eggs, in 34 languages; yet most people do... more