The Etymology of Insults

While the famous Merriam-Webster.com online dictionary is constantly being updated, creating a new edition of our Collegiate Dictionary print book is a different matter. We'd been updating it regularly since its publication in 2003, but it wasn't until fall of 2025 that we releas ...  Show more

Part three of a three-part interview with John Morse, former president and publisher of Merriam-WebsterHosted by Emily Brewster and Peter Sokolowski.Produced in collaboration with New England Public Media, with much gratitude to John Voci.Transcript available here.See Privacy Pol ...  Show more

Valerie Fridland (Like, Literally, Dude) is a professor, sociolinguist, and author. Valerie joins the Armchair Expert to discuss why people dislike the word "moist" so much, how accents are a part of social identity, and where modern English developed from. Valerie and Dax talk a ...  Show more

What happens when you know something that others don't? Or they know something you don't? These information asymmetries can great create a fog of mistrust, and doing business can get tricky. Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers help clear the economic fog, and find ways to restore ...  Show more

August 20, 1989. Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot and kill their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion, sparking a decades-long nationwide debate about what justice looks like. Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more.History Daily is a co-production of Air ...  Show more

In Blonde Roots, Bernardine Evaristo imagines a history where “Aphrikans” enslaved “whytes.” What systems would be different, and what would remain similar? In this episode, John Green and Rosianna Halse Rojas discuss what it means to reframe historical narratives and the difficu ...  Show more