Slate Presents Lexicon Valley

Special Announcement

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 18:49:16 +0000

Lexicon Valley will be back with a run of all-new episodes in the spring.

Lexicon Valley #26: The Fawth Flaw, Part II

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 05:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss R-dropping and the New York accent.

Lexicon Valley #25: The Fawth Flaw

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 05:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a defining feature of the classic New York accent.

Lexicon Valley #24: Get Your Creak On

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 05:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss creaky voice.

Lexicon Valley #23: Good Is Up

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 05:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss metaphor and the "fiscal cliff."

Lexicon Valley #22: Talking Leaves and Lightning Paper

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 05:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the Cherokee syllabary.

Lexicon Valley #21: Undocumented Illegals

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 05:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the debate over "illegal" versus "undocumented" at the heart of U.S. immigration policy.

Lexicon Valley #20: Death to Potatoes

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo speak with Nataly Kelly, coauthor of Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World.

Lexicon Valley #19: Here's to You Mrs. Malaprop

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss what malapropisms might reveal about the way we organize our mental dictionary.

Lexicon Valley #18: The Rate of Exchange

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the commonly held belief that some languages are spoken faster than others.

Lexicon Valley #17: Ascent of the A-word

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to linguist Geoffrey Nunberg about his book Ascent of the A-word: A**holism, the First Sixty Years.

Special Announcement from Lexicon Valley

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:31:31 +0000

Mike announces a run of all new episodes beginning later in the summer.

Lexicon Valley #16: Our Dying Words

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss what we lose when a language goes extinct.

Lexicon Valley #15: Then Is Now, Now and Then

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the historical present.

Lexicon Valley #14: By Their Words You Shall Know Them

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss stylometry.

Lexicon Valley #13: Capturing the Past

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk about how Mad Men and Downton Abbey can teach us about language change.

Lexicon Valley #12: The Eloquence of Plain English

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the Gettysburg Address.

Lexicon Valley #11: When Being Done Replaced Doing

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Sun, 27 May 2012 14:08:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the most significant change to the English language that you've never heard of.

Lexicon Valley #10: One Giant Leap for Humanity

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 14 May 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the he said/she said of the epicene pronoun.

Lexicon Valley #9: And May He Be a Masculine Bridge

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 07 May 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss how a simple quirk of grammar may affect the way we think.

Lexicon Valley #8: When Nouns Grew Genitals

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss what it means for language to have gender.

Lexicon Valley #7: A Needle Pulling Thread

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the big ambitions of the word "so."

Special Announcement from Lexicon Valley

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:50:37 +0000

Mike announces a batch of brand new episodes.

Lexicon Valley #6: A Meditation on Scrabble

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 02:50:00 +0000

Mike Vuolo talks to "Word Freak" author Stefan Fatsis about the nature of language in Scrabble.

Lexicon Valley #5: Untuning the String

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 04:08:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to author David Skinner about his book, The Story of Ain't, which will be published in the fall of 2012.

Lexicon Valley #4: Jumpin' Salty in The O

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 03:54:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the vernacular wrapped in a dialect inside a language that some call Ebonics.

Lexicon Valley #3: Consider the Lamppost

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 05:01:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the hypercorrected incorrectness of "between you and I."

Lexicon Valley #2: A Bundle of Faggots

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:06:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the evolution of the word "faggot."

Lexicon Valley #1: A Sin of Which None Is Guilty

slatelexiconvalley@gmail.com — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:05:00 +0000

Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the longstanding English language proscription against ending a sentence with a preposition.