Lexicon Valley
Episodes
A Perfect Episode
06 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"Perfect!" is everywhere. On the evolution and ubiquity of a flawless word. Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios Production. Episode 297: "A Per...
I've Been Hornswoggled!
21 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Listener Steven wrote: "I’ve been hornswoggled! So, what exactly has happened to me and when did people start getting hornswoggled? Is it painful?" ...
Loose as a Goose
07 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Is there anything particularly loose about a goose — or does that idiom exist only because it rhymes? Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo investigate. Visi...
The Sound of a Car Backshifting
24 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
John McWhorter on language change — from the meaning of wit to the pronunciation of automobile. Plus, a defense of redundancy! Visit Lexicon ...
How Do Words Get into the Dictionary?
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Getting new words into the dictionary is a rigorous, time consuming process — with no guarantee of success. Visit Lexicon Valley. A ...
Look It Up! The Story of the Dictionary.
03 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Unabridged author Stefan Fatsis on the fastidious practice of lexicography and the woman who amassed the single largest collection of dictionaries in ...
Open Season for Racists
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Like analog watch and snail mail, openly racist is a retronym — John McWhorter and Mike Vuolo explain. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/Lexi...
Playing the Angles
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What does St. John the Apostle have in common with Bernie Bernbaum, the sniveling grifter from Miller's Crossing? Angling! X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook:...
You Get the Gist
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
During an appearance on The Gist with Mike Pesca, we discussed the curious backstory of, you guessed it, the word gist. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: fa...
Derek Guy on the Language of Clothing
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A prolific writer on men's fashion, Guy discusses the vocabulary of outerwear and why dress is a form of social language. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: ...
McWhorter vs. McWhorter
06 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The world was shocked by a controversial article published by "John McWhorter." Here, he sets the record straight. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: faceboo...
A Toast to Toast
30 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Raise a glass to browned bread ... now you're toast! X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley...
All the Rage Bait
23 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Oxford English Dictionary editor Fiona McPherson talks to Mike Vuolo about the terms that caught her attention in 2025. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: fa...
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Author John Koenig talks about inventing words for those subtle emotions that hitherto had no name. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconVa...
6 7: Everything You Don't Know About the Word of the Year
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield join Mike Pesca of The Gist to talk about the long, strange journey of 6 7, from rapper Skrilla to the basketball court, f...
Gobbledygook Explained
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gobbledygook sounds like one of those words that somebody just made up — so is it? X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: bo...
Gen Alpha Thinks You're Cringe
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Our parents were cringe-inducing but we're just cringe. Twitter: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/Lexi...
The Amazing Great
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Good is no longer good enough. Everyone is awesome, superlative or simply great. Twitter: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: ...
It's Been a Minute
15 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Returning as the primary hosts of Lexicon Valley, Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield speak to John McWhorter about understatement and hyperbole in Black Engl...
Ask Not ...?
04 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield interview Richard Tofel on his book Sound the Trumpet: The Making of John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, revealing the ...
The American Accent Came First
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What did English sound like during the Revolutionary War? John has a number of fascinating observations about the way the language was spoken back the...
Oversleeping at the Sleepover
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over isn’t just the opposite of under and off is not necessarily the opposite of on. John explains. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.c...
The Story of Us
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
John talks about the subject of his new book by Avery Publishing — Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words. Twitter: @lexiconvalle...
Fire, Die, Rim
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Thai words for fire, die and rim sound an awful lot like the English words fire, die and rim. Why is that? John explains. Twitter: @lexiconvall...
Hither and Yon
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Words like thence and thither are all but obsolete in English, but they were actually quite useful! John explains. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Faceboo...
Down the Rabbit Hole
27 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Do you know the difference between a rabbit and a hare? And what then is a bunny? Follow John through the etymological warrens of these several words....
Giving You the Business
15 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It may seem apparent how we got from busyness to business, but the origins of the word “busy” itself are shrouded in mystery. John explains. Tw...
When Is Code-Switching Inappropriate?
09 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As a daily listener to WNYC Public Radio in New York City, John has noticed that a certain announcer frequently mispronounces words on air. He has tho...
The World's Largest Family
01 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Working backwards from existing languages, linguists have had great success reconstructing Proto-Indo-European. Does that mean we can do the same for ...
English Is Practically Naked
12 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A cyclone came through and blew off most of English’s clothes, says John, in Part II of his discussion of Indo-European. Twitter: @lexiconvalley ...
Family Ties
10 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There are at least five defining features among hundreds of related languages from English to Hindi to Russian. And what does any of that have to do w...
Going Deep
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The simple verb to go quickly gets complex in just about any language and English is no exception. John explains. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook...
Come Under Scrutiny
18 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What does the bat in “acrobat” have to do with the word come? John explains. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Web...
Have Your Own Damn Self a Merry Little Christmas
30 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Reflexive pronouns are redundant in a way, sure, but they’re also quite common in many languages. John explains. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Faceboo...
When Did People Start Talking?
06 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There’s good reason to believe that sophisticated speech began long before homo sapiens hit the scene. John explains. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Fa...
Who's Afraid of Ayesha Rascoe?
29 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Does Ayesha Rascoe have a good radio voice? Not according to many NPR listeners, who find her loud, high-pitched and generally grating. John explains....
What Is Miami English?
21 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A recent study suggests that a new dialect is emerging in the southern part of Florida. John explains. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook....
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
17 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The trial transcript of a 225-year-old murder is filled with fascinating evidence of the way we used to talk. John explains. Twitter: @lexiconvalle...
I Got My Nails Did!
09 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Many English verbs have three forms — sing, sang and sung, for example. The problem is that speakers seem to want only two. John explains. Twitte...
To v. Too
09 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Too — whether about excess, addition or contradiction — evolved from to. John explains. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/Lexicon...
Picture of Health
24 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Some languages adopt their “health” word from the concept of wholeness — a metaphor that makes perfect sense. Other languages, however, adopt th...
The Right Stuff
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Like the French word droit, English’s right has taken on a number of useful metaphorical meanings. John explains. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebo...
Age, Color, Origin, Material
20 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this favorite from the archives, John discusses some unwritten rules of English that can be remarkably difficult for a learner of English to master...
One for the Record Books
06 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The word “record” can be broken down into two parts, the re and the cord. But what do those parts even mean? John explains. Twitter: @lexiconva...
Why Do People in Old Movies Talk Like That?
20 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
John is traveling this week and so we’re running a previous episode about the speech patterns of Bette Davis, George Gershwin, Louis Armstrong and c...
Past Master
05 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
So many of our words have ugly associations that are particular to a historical time or event. Should we expunge them entirely from our vocabulary? Ca...
Are You Tryna Hear This?
22 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Words that come to mean “want” often start out meaning something else. Take “want,” for example. John explains. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Fa...
The Ambassadors
07 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Henry James wrote his final novels just over a century ago — and yet they are far less accessible than works written much earlier. John explains. ...
Apostrophe S
26 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Possession is more or less about ownership, and we denote that in English by adding ’s to the end of a word. But of course there’s far more to the...
Is "Knocked Up" Racist?
13 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a rumor going around social networks that “knocked up” traces back to American slave trading. Is there any evidence for that etymology? ...
What a Young Brain Can Do
11 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s tempting to imagine that a sentence will translate rather neatly, word by word, from one language to another. It’s also naive. English, after...
What Do You Talk?
29 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The book and lyrics of The Music Man are replete with everyday, ordinary dialogue that, nevertheless, demonstrates how English often works. John expla...
The Problem With You
14 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
English used to have a more or less typical array of second person pronouns, with thou and thee for the singular — subject and object cases, respect...
The Rodney Dangerfield Pronoun
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Comedian Rodney Dangerfield was fond of introducing jokes with a kind of redundancy, for example: “My wife, she told me I was one in a million. I fo...
Is "Negro" a Slur or Just Antiquated?
13 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The racial reckoning of the past several years has altered the way we think about and use language, often for better but occasionally for worse. And s...
One Is the Loneliest Number
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Only, lonely, alone and even atone all derive from the number one, which, by the way, wasn’t always pronounced as if it began with the letter w. Joh...
Throw Up, Turn Out & Believe
16 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Words like chit-chat, pitter-patter and wishy-washy are formed that way for a reason beyond the pleasing way that they sound. The vowel change actuall...
Why Fidget Poppers Are "Satisfying"
02 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What does the proliferation of so-called ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) videos say about the nuanced use of the word satisfying? John exp...
Why Do We Dot Our i's?
19 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As a guest on The Late Show, John told Stephen Colbert that there was nothing especially interesting to say about the word I. Well, he takes that back...
You Are SO Articulate. Really.
06 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Do you remember learning — in grade school most likely — the difference between a count noun and a mass noun? Probably not, and yet chances are th...
When Words Collide
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We are frequently asked — often by young listeners who are fascinated by language — how English could possibly accumulate the many thousands of wo...
The Haphazard History of C
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The letters C and K can both represent what we might call a Hard C — as in Cosmo Kramer or Calvin Klein. Not to mention Q, which usually indicates t...
JFK's Most Famous Sentence
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy delivered — to an audience seated both outside at the U.S. Capitol and at home in front of their tele...
The Evolution of 'Woke'
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to be woke? Has the word problematic become problematic? Today in the Valley, John McWhorter talks with Banished host Amna Khalid ab...
Reviving Dead Languages
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
More than half the world’s approximately 7,000 languages will have no speakers left in the coming decades. Some are working feverishly to preserve o...
Let Sleeping Dogs Lay
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Do you know that the past participle of the intransitive verb lie is lain and that its past tense is lay, not to be confused with the present tense of...
Bonus: How Did Nigeria Get Its Name?
09 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You might guess that Nigeria and Niger derive their names from the Latin word for “black,” especially since both countries were formerly colon...
Where Is the Name Ketanji From?
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee has said that her parents picked “Ketanji” from a list of West African names supplied by a relative. But...
The Ukrainian Language
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As John likes to say, Proto-Indo-European — the original ancestor of many European and Asian languages — began on the steppes of Ukraine. This is ...
How About This Weather?
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
To describe inclement weather in English, we might say that “it” is raining, which seems natural to a native speaker. But does “it” refer to t...
Joe Rogan and the N-Word, by Way of Kyiv
15 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You may have noticed, among widespread coverage of looming Russian aggression, an unfamiliar pronunciation of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. What’s wit...
Son of a B***h on a Hot Mic
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A hot mic caught President Biden using the epithet to describe a Fox News reporter. Where did “son of a b***h” come from, and why are modern speak...
RIP: Sidney Poitier, Lani Guinier, Max Julien
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Actors Sidney Poitier and Max Julien and law professor Lani Guinier — all of whom died this month — have last names that reveal fascinating storie...
300 Years of Language Peevery
29 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Self-styled language experts — and let’s face it, that includes all of us — have lamented the decline of English for centuries. From shifting pr...
Four Calling Birds? Not Exactly.
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Happy New Year! In the warm and generous spirit of the holidays, we’re making this week’s bonus segment free to all. But there’s more: Until the...
Why Does the Letter "A" Look That Way?
14 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An alphabet, one of humanity’s greatest innovations, is far from intuitive. Our own English lettering was borrowed from the Romans, of course, but w...
Happy Days Are Here
02 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
To celebrate the re-release of ten original Lexicon Valley episodes — remastered, ad-free and for paying subscribers only — Mike Vuolo and Bob Gar...
BONUS: In Language, Context Is King
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The late philosopher Paul Grice formulated four brief maxims by which conversations are generally governed. Most humans find it relatively easy to obs...
That's Not What Irony Means, Alanis
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Language is tricky. It doesn’t do what you think it should. It’s as messy as almost anything that’s created by natural selection. And that’s w...
Can You Play “Jew” in Scrabble?
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Scrabble and other similar games have been the subject of an ongoing lexicographic debate in recent years, with some arguing that ethnic slurs have no...
A*#holes and B%tches
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dividing up nouns as “masculine” and “feminine” — like, for example, in Spanish — has not been a part of English for many centuries. And y...
On the Singular 'They' and Slippery Slopes
05 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
English has been calling out for a gender-neutral pronoun for more than a century, with many failed attempts at invented words and portmanteaus. Singu...
The Pandemic's Effect on Language
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Turns out that some languages are less intelligible through a mask than others, and, believe it or not, it all depends on how often you use certain co...
What Do They Speak in Afghanistan?
07 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dari and Pashto are the two major, official languages of Afghanistan, and are even siblings in the Iranian subfamily of Indo-European languages. One, ...
The Morphing of Critical Race Theory
24 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a lot of passionate argument about whether “Critical Race Theory” should be taught in schools. But the meaning of CRT differs greatly de...
Mare of Easttown and the Philly Accent
10 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the 7-part crime drama, Mare of Easttown, Kate Winslet plays a flannel-clad cop with a thirst for Rolling Rock, an appetite for hoagies and a tende...
English Has a Bee in Its Bonnet
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is a spelling bee, anyway? Why do spelling bees pair particularly well with the English language? And we’ll explore the tempting but complex pr...
Russian Is My Mt. Everest
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A grueling, painful, lifelong joy of studying Russian was sparked by Anna Karenina. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley We...
Russian Is My Mt. Everest
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How the novel Anna Karenina sparked a quest to learn Tolstoy's native tongue. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmart...
Languages of Northern Africa
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From vowelless words to complex poetry, Berber to Somali. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmartstudios....
Languages of Northern Africa
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Berber, Somali and other fascinating languages of the region. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/Lexi...
You're Gonna Hafta
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Deconstructing a single line of dialogue from Netflix's "The Crown." Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksm...
You’re Gonna Hafta
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Linguistic inspiration from a television series about the Royal Family. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudio...
The Languages of Southeast Asia
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why are so many of the languages of Southeast Asia "like Chinese"? Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Website: booksmar...
The Languages of Southeast Asia
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Are Vietnamese, Thai and others of that region a lot like Mandarin? X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.co...
Irregardless Make You Cringe? Relax.
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
English is full of redundancies—so why are we bothered by only a select few? Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/LexiconValley Websi...
Irregardless Make You Cringe?
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Some other words that perhaps should bother you but probably don't. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.co...
Nine Nasty Words
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
John McWhorter teases his new book about off-color English expressions, starting with c!#k. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/Lexicon...
Nine Nasty Words
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
English in the gutter: then, now and forever. X: @lexiconvalleyFacebook: facebook.com/LexiconValleyWebsite: booksmartstudios.com/LexiconValley Learn ...
The Invisible Complexities of Translation
13 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A single word—take "self," for example—reveals the thorny nature of literary translation. Twitter: @lexiconvalley Facebook: facebook.com/Lexic...