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About This Podcast
Word Matters is a show for readers, writers, and anyone who's curious about the English language. Join Merriam-Webster editors as they challenge supposed grammar rules, reveal the surprising origins behind words, tackle common questions, and generally geek out about the beautiful nightmare that is our language.
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Recent Episodes
The Making of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Twelfth Edition
While the famous Merriam-Webster.com online dictionary is constantly being updated, creating a new edition of our Collegiate Dictionary print book is a different matter. We'd been updating it…
An Interview with John Morse, Part 3
Part three of a three-part interview with John Morse, former president and publisher of Merriam-WebsterHosted by Emily Brewster and Peter Sokolowski.Produced in collaboration with New England Public…
An Interview with John Morse, Part 2
Part two of a three-part interview with John Morse, former president and publisher of Merriam-WebsterHosted by Emily Brewster and Peter Sokolowski.Produced in collaboration with New England Public…
An Interview with John Morse, Part 1
Part one of a three-part interview with John Morse, former president and publisher of Merriam-WebsterHosted by Emily Brewster and Peter Sokolowski.Produced in collaboration with New England Public…
Episode 100: How did we get here?
It’s our 100th episode, which seemed like a good occasion to answer a listener question of a more personal type: how did we—that is, we three editors—get here?Hosted by Emily Brewster, Ammon Shea,…
Do we repeat ourselves? Very well then, we repeat ourselves.
A listener questions a tautology in one of our definitions and starts us off on a discussion of all types of repetition and redundancy.Hosted by Emily Brewster, Ammon Shea, and Peter…
Hackneyed Phrases, Both Old and New
Writing advice often includes hackneyed phrases we’re supposed to avoid. The phrases we're warned against today are different from the ones of yesteryear. We'll explore both.Hosted by Emily Brewster,…
Tips for Frenchifying Your French
Whether you're hoping to improve your high school French or just order that croissant with more confidence, we have some tips for you.Hosted by Emily Brewster, Ammon Shea, and Peter…
Eggcorns, Mondegreens, and Spoonerisms—Oh My!
A discussion of various kinds of slips of the tongue and errors of the ear.Hosted by Emily Brewster, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski.Produced in collaboration with New England Public…
Traveling Words: Luggage, Baggage, and the Recombobulation Station
In the disconcerting event that your travels by air deliver you, but not what you've packed, to your destination, you may find yourself filing a lost luggage claim, or a lost baggage claim—it could…
Skunked Words
Sometimes a word, over time, will take on a meaning that doesn’t play very nicely with its original meaning, leaving a person who knows both meanings unsure what to do. Is the word still usable? Or…
When Dictionaries Drop Words
We’ve discussed how words come to be entered in our dictionaries before, but today we’re going to talk about removing words from dictionaries. Which words get dropped? And why? Hosted by Emily…
Wordle Does Not Make Us Nauseous
Some listeners want to know if working with words professionally makes a dictionary editor better, or worse, at Wordle, and another listener wants us to weigh in on the difference between 'nauseated'…
The Invention of the Modern Dictionary
The earliest dictionaries were the fruit of one person’s labor, but the 1864 Webster's Unabridged changed all of that.Hosted by Emily Brewster, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski.Produced in…
An Interview with Jacques Bailly, Official Pronouncer for Scripps National Spelling Bee
Jacques Bailly has been the official pronouncer for Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2003—23 years after winning the bee himself. A professor in the Classics department at the University of…
Nashe's 8 Types of Drunkards Includes No Octopi
An exploration of Thomas Nashe's use of animals as metaphors for those who imbibe heavily; And what *is* the plural of octopus?Hosted by Emily Brewster, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski.Produced in…
Will 'ect.' become an acceptable spelling of 'etc.'? And if it does, will that be unexplainable or merely inexplicable?
An exploration of spellings—like 'ect.' for 'etc.'—that reflect alternative pronunciations, and the unexplainable favoritism that is shown to 'inexplicable.'Hosted by Emily Brewster, Ammon Shea, and…
Corrections, Clarifications, and Grave Transgressions
A visit to the mailbag provides us with a sartorial use of ‘hipster,’ some schooling on 19th century locomotive technology, and a question about sneaking words into dictionaries.Hosted by Emily…
Uncommon Opposites
We all know how to find opposites by removing prefixes: 'unhappy' becomes 'happy'; 'disagree' becomes 'agree.' Easy peasy. But some words resist prefix removal—or, at least they try. Hosted by Emily…
George Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language'
George Orwell published his famous essay "Politics and the English Language" in 1946, and we mostly wish he hadn't.Hosted by Emily Brewster, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski.Produced in collaboration…
Frequently Asked Questions
Word Matters has published 106 episodes since August 2020, covering topics in Arts, Books.
Word Matters is currently declining with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 20m.
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