Episode 4: John McWhorter

When I start to feel overwhelmed by the climate challenges we face, I turn to Hannah Ritchie, a researcher at Our World in Data. Her data-driven approach is an essential antidote to environmental doomsday-ism and provides some much-needed optimism about humanity’s ability to tack ...  Show more

If you ask people to name leaders in artificial intelligence, there’s one name you’ll probably hear more than any other: Sam Altman. His team at OpenAI is pushing the boundaries of what AI can do with ChatGPT, and I loved getting to talk to him about what’s next. Our conversation ...  Show more

Have you ever wondered what’s up with double negation, the history of gender neutral pronouns, or why swearing is taboo? Then get ready for this week’s guest, linguist Anne Curzan! Anne and Jonathan talk about how the English language has evolved since the 1300s and how our words ...  Show more

990. Have you ever wondered why English doesn't have gender like Spanish and French? Which languages are the hardest to learn (and why)? And why a Q is always followed by a U? We have the answers to those questions and more this week from Paul Anthony Jones, author of "Why is thi ...  Show more

John Buettner-Janusch was one of the first Americans to study lemurs. He held prestigious faculty positions at Yale, Duke and NYU, before surprising everyone with a series of increasingly bizarre crimes. Peter Kobel's Book is The Strange Case of the Mad Professor. You can learn m ...  Show more

The Prime Minister of the UK has a unique way of using language, which shows his privileged upbringing and elite education.

Learn about how he uses language, why he talks in this way, why this appeals to the British people, and wha ...