Little Shavers (episode #1538) 12/15/2019: The word hipster might seem recent, but it actually originated in the 1930s when it referred to jazz aficionados who were in the know about... [more]
Bug in Your Ear (episode #1537) 12/09/2019: Is there something inherent in English that makes it the linguistic equivalent of the Borg, dominating and consuming other languages in its path? No, not... [more]
The Black Dog (episode #1536) 11/25/2019: Books were rare treasures in the Middle Ages, painstakingly copied out by hand. So how to protect them from theft? Scribes sometimes added a curse... [more]