Word Bomb

Well into the second year of the pandemic, is "resilience" really what we need to be cultivating? Pippa and Karina are joined by Julie S. Lalonde, a women's rights advocate and author of the memoir "Resilience Is Futile." Together they tackle the trap of resilience, and why it shouldn't be doing all the heavy lifting in the face of real systemic problems. They also touch on disaster studies, brain plasticity, and more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What sets a cult apart from a religion? Is it a harmless groupthink, or something much darker? And why are cults having such a moment right now, from pop culture to politics? Pippa and Karina drink the Kool-Aid and venture deep into wild, wild country with the help of Marianne Boucher, author of the graphic novel 'Talking to Strangers: A Memoir of My Escape from a Cult.'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a difference capitalization makes: Pippa and Karina dive into the hotly debated and deeply personal terminology around being Deaf/deaf. They're joined by deaf podcaster Caroline Mincks to break down the spectrum and diversity of the deaf and hard-of-hearing experience, and why words matter when labeling members of this community. Along the way, they touch on the cochlear implant debate, sign language, person-first language, and "deaf gain."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When and how do we decide that someone can't make their own decisions? As the "grey wave" of aging baby boomers approaches, ,capacity, has become an all-important metric. Pippa and Karina speak to Laura Tamblyn Watts, the CEO of seniors' advocacy organization CanAge, to break down mental capacity assessments for seniors, as well as the capacity of our health care system.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From relationships, to workplaces, to masculinity, "toxic" is a label we've embraced enthusiastically for the last few years. Pippa and Karina trace this overused metaphor from a 1980s fringe men's movement all the way to the Britney song we know and love.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The abolition movement has hit the mainstream, and calls to disarm, defund, and dismantle the system as we know it have never been louder. Rinaldo Walcott, author of "On Property," joins Pippa and Karina to imagine a world without police or prisons, discuss the problem of property, and decode the language of reform.Rinaldo Walcott is the director of the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto and the author of "On Property" (Biblioasis, 2021).If you're interested in reading more on the topic of abolition, Rinaldo's recommended booklist includes, "We Do This 'til We Free Us," by Mariame Kaba; Golden Gulag by Ruth Wilson Gilmore; and "Are Prisons Obsolete?" by Angela Davis.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amid an affordable housing crisis, the language around homelessness is changing - but is it helping? With insights from housing activist Lorraine Lam and Toronto Drop-in Network coordinator Diana Chan McNally, Pippa and Karina track the rise of alternatives such as "unhoused," and break down the spectrum of homelessness and housing precarity. Thank you to our guests Diana Chan McNally, a training and engagement coordinator at the Toronto Drop-In Network, and Lorraine Lam, who is a housing activist and outreach worker at Sanctuary TO. If you’re interested in the Canadian-specific definition of homelessness, the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness has broken it down into four main typologies: unsheltered, emergency sheltered, provisionally accommodated, and at risk. They also have a separate definition for Indigenous homelessness in Canada.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pippa and Karina embark on a totally hard-hitting investigation into the past, present, and future of the word "simp," from 1970s hip-hop to 1990s rap to Tiktok. With its overtones of misogyny, toxic masculinity, and homophobia, this of-the-moment insult takes them back into the territory of Nice Guys and the "manosphere." Where did simping get its start? And might there be a chance for a rare redemption arc?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves near residential schools across the country has re-launched a national conversation on the word "genocide" and why politicians tread lightly around it. In this episode, Pippa and Karina talk to award-winning novelist, lawyer, and activist Michelle Good (Five Little Indians) about the legal definition of genocide and the power behind the word. This episode deals with topics that may cause trauma invoked by memories of past abuse. If you’re a former residential school student, you can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-Hour National Indian Residential School Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419. Did you live near a residential school? This interactive map from the CBC will let you find out. Just plug in a year and your address, and you’ll see the closest residential school and its years of operation. We also recommend another interactive map, Native-Land.ca, which allows settlers to educate themselves on whose territorial land they are living on. Huge thanks to our guest Michelle Good, whose Governor General–winning novel Five Little Indians is available at bookstores everywhere.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Word Bomb is back with nine episodes that tell the story behind hot-button words like genocide, homeless, and deaf. Season four drops October 14th. Let’s continue to explore language together! Please support the Word Bomb podcast by donating today at www.tvo.org/supportpods. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The acronym BIPOC has been around for years-but in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and BLM protests across North America this summer, it's been thrust into the spotlight. Is this hot-button term inclusive or homogenizing? Does it signal solidarity or perpetuate erasure? Pippa and Karina break down BIPOC from a uniquely Canadian perspective with help from Paige Galette, a queer Black artist and organizer from Ontario, as well as France Trépanier, an artist and curator of Kanien’kehà:ka and French ancestry and the co-director of the initiative Primary Colours/Couleurs primaires.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now that we've got your attention: Pippa and Karina investigate how sex drives slang creation in the English language. With Jonathon Green, one of the world's leading lexicographers and author of Green's Dictionary of Slang, they take a trip through steamy slang and anatomical idioms from the 1500s all the way to the present day. They also break down the all-important distinction between the words "sex" and "gender."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why are some people living abroad called "expats" and others called "immigrants" or "migrants"? Is it simply semantics, or something much deeper? In this episode, Pippa and Karina decode the politics, power dynamics, and privilege behind these loaded terms, and unpack the baggage carried by travelers to and from the global north and south. They're joined by Dr. Anu Taranath, a racial equity consultant and author of the book "Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Karina and Pippa take a trip down the grocery aisle to peel back the "organic" label. The organic food industry is booming-but is it all marketing and markup at Whole Foods, or the future of sustainable farming? A tightly regulated industry, or ripe for fraud? Is an apple really just an apple? Along the way, they speak to one of Canada's foremost food trend analysts and sink their teeth into both the assumptions and the facts behind this agricultural movement.Thank you to Dana McCauley of New Venture Creation for the interview, and special thanks to Joel Aitken of Ecocert Canada for his invaluable background on the path to organic certification in Canada.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2020 is definitely #cancelled, but who can cancel who, and where does boycotting end and cancelling start? Pippa and Karina data-mine Twitter, sort through the endless op-eds, and debate the catharsis and consequences of call-out culture. Online and IRL, cashing in on the thriving "attention economy" has never been so easy-or so fraught.For some extra reading, we recommend checking out the article "Everyone Is Canceled" by NYT writer Jonah Engel Bromwich, as well as "Why we can't stop fighting about cancel culture" by Vox writer Aja Romano.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pippa and Karina talk to an entire chorus of Karens and break down the memeification of this now-infamous first name, from the baby boom to Black Lives Matter. Women weaponizing their whiteness have never been so easily called out-but how did one of the most popular baby names of the mid-century come to represent the biggest villain of 2020?Thank you to all Karens who we spoke to this episode: Karyn Guenther, Karin Freeman, Karen Burgess, Karen Stowe-Spektor, Karen Williams, Karen Gray, and Karen K Ho.For further reading, we recommend checking out the NYT article "How White Women Use Themselves as Instruments of Terror" by Charles M. Blow; the book They Were Her Property by Stephanie Jones-Rogers; and the SNL "Baby Shower" skit for good measure.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pippa and Karina take a quick break from doomscrolling to ring in the U.S. presidential election with an episode on the word "Republican." From res publica to revolution, from the party of Lincoln to the party of Trump, identifying as Republican has gone through some major sea change over the centuries-and the word has never been more loaded than in 2020. As the United States stands on the brink of a historic vote, is the GOP what it used to be?Thank you to Rob Vipond of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy for his interview!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pippa and Karina follow this surface-level word straight into one of the darkest corners of the internet: the manosphere, complete with Nice Guys, good boys, incels, and MRAs. How did one boring, overused adjective become the ultimate red flag? "Nice" is so much more than the sum of its parts.Thank you to our guest Shelby Lorman, the artist behind the Instagram account @awardsforgoodboys and the book of the same name.Credit for Not Ready to Make Nice: Emily Robinson, Natalie Maines, Martha Maguire, and Dan Wilson/Sony/youtube.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Millennials are often called the "hustle generation." They're famous for side gigging, bootstrapping, and burning out. But what really is hustling, and where did it come from? This week on Word Bomb, Pippa and Karina meet hustle culture at the source, investigating the way we talk about work-all the way from its Jim Crow-era roots to 1950s workaholism, 90s rap to Silicon Valley startups. There are so many articles on the phenomenon of millennial hustle culture, but you might want to start with Anne Helen Petersen's "How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation"(https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/millennials-burnout-generation-debt-work) and Erin Griffith's ,Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work?, (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/business/against-hustle-culture-rise-and-grind-tgim.html)For more reading on the Black roots of the word "hustle" and how the word has been co-opted by startup culture, we recommend checking out this great 2020 article (https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/04/03/826015780/when-the-hustle-isnt-enough)from Isabella Rosario of NPR's Code Switch, as well as Lester Spence's book Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics.Credit for "Everyday Struggle": The Notorious B.I.G./Sony Music Entertainment/youtube.comCredit for "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)": JAY-Z/Universal Music Group/youtube.comCredit for "U Don't Know": JAY-Z/Universal Music Group/spotify.comCredit for "Hustlin'": Rick Ross/Universal Music Group/youtube.comThanks for listening!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Word Bomb, Pippa and Karina examine the myriad of modern ways to self-identify as Latin American. Joined by a Chicanx psycholinguist and a Venezuelanx performer, they dig into divisive debates and far-reaching colonial history to see why the gender-neutral term “Latinx”—and its many variations—is on the rise. You can follow Megan’s academic and activist work on her website and follow her on Twitter @megandfigueroa. NB: She’s compiled a great database of marginalized scholars in the field of linguistics/language. Augusto is a Venezuelan-born, Dora Award-winning performer, writer, and educator based in Toronto. Check out his website and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @augustobitter. For further reading, we recommend checking out David Bowles’ excellent and informative blog post on the history of “Latinx”; he has a book on the topic forthcoming from Oxford University Press in 2021. Also consider picking up Ed Morales’ book Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture. Thanks for listening!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.