The Endless Knot

We talked to Kory Stamper, lexicographer and author, about the unexpectedly gripping story of the struggle to define colours and wrestle the kaleidoscope of our social, scientific, artistic, sartorial, and commercial understanding of hues into some sort of order. This is truly one of our favourite books we’ve ever read for this podcast!
Kory’s book True Color
Kory Stamper’s website
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What does your accent say about you? (And yes, you DO have an accent!) Why do accents develop, and what is the history behind the wide range of modern American accents? We talked to Valerie Fridland about all of these questions and more, covered in her delightful new book “Why We Talk Funny”.
Valerie’s book “Why We Talk Funny”
Like, Literally, Dude! and our interview with her about it
Dr. Valerie Fridland’s website
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We spoke with linguist, writer and podcaster Dr Danny Bate about his debut book, Why Q Needs U, a “linguistico-historical non-fiction book” that sets out to answer two big questions: Where did we get the letters of the alphabet from? And why does English use them so strangely? We had a delightful conversation about the book, his podcast, Indo-European, and cats!
Danny’s book “Why Q Needs U”
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An apology for absence, some personal news, and the guests coming in the next few months.
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Grace Tierney is back with another great book about the word origins, this time “Words Christmas Gave Us"! She regales us with festive stories and we talk about some of the fun traditions and treats of the winter holidays.
It’s been a long, unintended break since our last episode, but we’re happy to be back at it, in time to wish everyone very happy holidays!
Wordfoolery website
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