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© Lexicon Valley
Description
A podcast about language, with hosts Mike Vuolo, Bob Garfield and John McWhorter.
299 Episodes
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Unabridged author Stefan Fatsis on the fastidious practice of lexicography and the woman who amassed the single largest collection of dictionaries in history.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 292: "Look It Up! The Story of the Dictionary." With Stefan Fatsis and Bob Garfield. Edited and produced by Mike Vuolo. Produced by Livia Bloom Ingram. All rights reserved.
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Like 'analog watch' and 'snail mail,' 'openly racist' is a retronym — John McWhorter and Mike Vuolo explain.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 291: "Open Season for Racists." With John McWhorter and Mike Vuolo. All rights reserved.
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What does St. John the Apostle have in common with Bernie Bernbaum, the sniveling grifter from Miller's Crossing? Angling!
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 290: "Playing the Angles." With Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo. Produced by Livia Bloom Ingram. All rights reserved.
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During an appearance on The Gist with Mike Pesca, we discussed the curious backstory of, you guessed it, the word gist.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 289: "You Get the Gist." With Bob Garfield, Mike Pesca, and Mike Vuolo. Produced by Livia Bloom Ingram. Special thanks to Michelle Hunter Pesca. All rights reserved.
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A prolific writer on men's fashion, Guy discusses the vocabulary of outerwear and why dress is a form of social language.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 288: "Derek Guy on the Language of Clothing." With Derek Guy and Mike Vuolo. Produced by Livia Bloom Ingram. All rights reserved.
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The world was shocked by a controversial article published by "John McWhorter." Here, he sets the record straight.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 287: "McWhorter vs. McWhorter." With John McWhorter. Produced by Mike Vuolo. All rights reserved.
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Raise a glass to browned bread ... now you're toast!
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 286: "A Toast to Toast." With Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo. Produced by Livia Bloom Ingram. All rights reserved.
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Oxford English Dictionary editor Fiona McPherson talks to Mike Vuolo about the terms that caught her attention in 2025.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 285: "All the Rage Bait." With Fiona McPherson and Mike Vuolo. Produced by Mike Vuolo. All rights reserved.
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Author John Koenig talks about inventing words for those subtle emotions that hitherto had no name.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 284: "The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows." With Bob Garfield, John Koenig, and Mike Vuolo. Produced by Livia Bloom Ingram. All rights reserved.
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Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield join Mike Pesca of The Gist to talk about the long, strange journey of 6 7, from rapper Skrilla to the basketball court, from the classroom to the Word of the Year.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 283: "6 7: Everything You Don't Know About the Word of the Year." With Bob Garfield, Mike Pesca, and Mike Vuolo. Produced by Livia Bloom Ingram. Special thanks to Michelle Hunter Pesca. All rights reserved.
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Gobbledygook sounds like one of those words that somebody just made up — so is it?
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 282: "Gobbledygook Explained." With Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo. Produced by Livia Bloom Ingram. All rights reserved.
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Our parents were cringe-inducing but we're just cringe.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 281: "Gen Alpha Thinks You're Cringe." With Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo. Produced by Livia Bloom Ingram. All rights reserved.
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Good is no longer good enough. Everyone is awesome, superlative or just great.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 280: "The Amazing Great." With Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo. Produced by Livia Bloom Ingram. All rights reserved.
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Returning as the primary hosts of Lexicon Valley, Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield speak to John McWhorter about understatement and hyperbole in Black English.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 279: "It's Been a Minute." With Bob Garfield, John McWhorter, and Mike Vuolo. Produced by Livia Bloom Ingram. All rights reserved.
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Richard Tofel, author of Sound the Trumpet: The Making of John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, reveals the startling authorship behind JFK’s most famous words.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 34: "Ask Not?" With Bob Garfield, Richard Tofel, and Mike Vuolo. All rights reserved.
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What did English sound like during the Revolutionary War? John has a number of fascinating observations about the way the language was spoken back then — including the accents!
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 278: "The American Accent Came First." With John McWhorter. Produced and edited by Mike Vuolo. All rights reserved.
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Over isn’t just the opposite of under and off is not necessarily the opposite of on.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 277: "Oversleeping at the Sleepover." With John McWhorter. Produced and edited by Mike Vuolo. All rights reserved.
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John talks about the subject of his new book from Avery Publishing — Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words.
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 276: "The Story of Us." With John McWhorter. Produced and edited by Mike Vuolo. All rights reserved.
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The Thai words for fire, die and rim sound an awful lot like the English words fire, die and rim. How could that be?
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 275: "Fire, Die, Rim." With John McWhorter. Produced and edited by Mike Vuolo. All rights reserved.
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Words like thence and thither are all but obsolete in English, but they were actually quite useful!The Thai words for fire, die and rim sound an awful lot like the English words fire, die and rim. How could that be?
Visit Lexicon Valley. A Booksmart Studios production. Episode 274: "Hither and Yon." With John McWhorter. Produced and edited by Mike Vuolo. All rights reserved.
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Rascoe did great reporting work when she covered the White House. I never could figure out how SHE felt about the subjects of her reporting. She has been the ONLY truly non-partisan reporter I've heard from Presidential coverage. It allowed me to focus entirely on the content, without having to scope out bias.
उधजलस शंं शसंधवधः
My husband and I loved Ayesha Roscoe from the get go. She sounds human!
My little brother once retorted, "I AM being haved!" when told to behave. 🤣
"Put on your coat and put on your hat. walk yourself to the laundrymat." Yakety, Yak. Coasters 1957(?)
A great episode! Thank you. I'm going to find Ragtime!
persian: rain comes! بارون میاد
As an Iranian, my preference between Farsi and Persian is the latter. Not only because of the reason John is explaining in this show, but also because Farsi is the Arabized form of the actual Persian word "Parsi". Persia (today Iran) was colonized by early Muslim Arabs for centuries. While they could not change the language like what they did in many other colonized lands such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon,... they impacted the Persian language a great deal, mainly vocabulary-wise. As an example, in Arabic (from Arabia peninsula) there is no P sound. So whenever they encounter it in other languages, they usually change it to F sound. As a result, the word Parsi (meaning Persian) altered to Farsi. As I already mentioned, Arabs invaded and conquered Persia/Iran in the 7th century and ruled Iran for centuries under Khalifat (Muslim Empire). The result is a great deal of change in culture, religion, and language. That's why today the word Farsi is more common than the actual "Parsi" in Iran. Ho
It's those pesky Etruscans! That's my new blame-all phrase.
You got me with the "out of gas" because I thought you were going into the contextual usage for "I'm tired." and you didn't. I couldn't predict where you were going with it. 🤪
I am from Marylqnd and I love this episode because I totally relate to the pronunciations. I love having them "spelled out". ; )
on the origin of A$$holes: when cleaning, or gutting, an animal, you start at the anus and cut around it then work towards the head to avoid cutting any of the guts which would lead to contamination of the meet. This offal was left behind as useless. So, referring to a "pile of a$$holes, over there" is drawing comparison to the useless leftovers. Your other early examples also seem to imply useless as the primary meaning, too. In English, it appears that all derogatory terms trend toward common usage, to describe a "bad person"; asshole, bastard, shithead, etc. are, for all intents, interchangeable today.
The world needs more John McWhorter. Glad I found this!
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