The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins

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.

• 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