Lexicon Valley from Booksmart Studios

The trial transcript of a 225-year-old murder is filled with fascinating evidence of the way we used to talk. John expla... Read more

Many English verbs have three forms — sing, sang and sung, for example. The problem is that speakers seem to want only t... Read more

Too — whether about excess, addition or contradiction — evolved from to. John explains. This is a public episode. If you... Read more

Some languages adopt their “health” word from the concept of wholeness — a metaphor that makes perfect sense. Other lang... Read more

Like the French word droit, English’s right has taken on a number of useful metaphorical meanings. John explains. This i... Read more

In this favorite from the archives, John discusses some unwritten rules of English that can be remarkably difficult for ... Read more

The word “record” can be broken down into two parts, the re and the cord. But what do those parts even mean? John explai... Read more

John is traveling this week and so we’re running a previous episode about the speech patterns of Bette Davis, George Ger... Read more

So many of our words have ugly associations that are particular to a historical time or event. Should we expunge them en... Read more

Words that come to mean “want” often start out meaning something else. Take “want,” for example. John explains. This is ... Read more