Hear the story behind the everyday words in our lexicon, and follow an award-winning professor as she demonstrates how much the evolution of our language can teach us about ourselves.
The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins
Overview
Syllabus
- By This Professor
- 01: Winning Words, Banished Words
- 02: The Life of a Word, from Birth to Death
- 03: The Human Hands behind Dictionaries
- 04: Treasure Houses, Theft, and Traps
- 05: Yarn and Clues-New Word Meanings
- 06: Smog, Mob, Bling-New Words
- 07: "Often" versus "Offen"-Pronunciation
- 08: Fighting over Zippers
- 09: Opening the Early English Word-Hoard
- 10: Safe and Sound-The French Invasion
- 11: Magnifical Dexterity-Latin and Learning
- 12: Chutzpah to Pajamas-World Borrowings
- 13: The Pop/Soda/Coke Divide
- 14: Maths, Wombats, and Les Bluejeans
- 15: Foot and Pedestrian-Word Cousins
- 16: Desultory Somersaults-Latin Roots
- 17: Analogous Prologues-Greek Roots
- 18: The Tough Stuff of English Spelling
- 19: The b in Debt-Meddling in Spelling
- 20: Of Mice, Men, and Y'All
- 21: I'm Good ... Or Am I Well?
- 22: How Snuck Sneaked In
- 23: Um, Well, Like, You Know
- 24: Wicked Cool-The Irreverence of Slang
- 25: Boy Toys and Bad Eggs-Slangy Wordplay
- 26: Spinster, Bachelor, Guy, Dude
- 27: Firefighters and Freshpersons
- 28: A Slam Dunk-The Language of Sports
- 29: Fooling Around-The Language of Love
- 30: Gung Ho-The Language of War
- 31: Filibustering-The Language of Politics
- 32: LOL-The Language of the Internet
- 33: #$@%!-Forbidden Words
- 34: Couldn't (or Could) Care Less
- 35: Musquirt and Other Lexical Gaps
- 36: Playing Fast and Loose with Words
Taught by
Anne Curzan
