Why is this a question? with Paul Anthony Jon...

1177. This week, we look at behind-the-scenes of being a curator at Harvard's Houghton Library with John Overholt. We look at why 18th-century paper is surprisingly tough, how John managed the high-stakes transport of a George Washington book, and why curators actually prefer bar ...  Show more

1176. This week, we look at mind-bending words, including "semordnilap" (which spells "palindromes" backwards), "pentasyllabic" (which has five syllables), and "hyphenated" (which is not hyphenated). Then, we tackle how to use "me" and "myself" (with an aside for "hisself," "mese ...  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

I recently started learning French, and the process has made one thing clear to me: There’s a lot I don’t understand about how languages work. So, I turned to John McWhorter, a linguist who has dedicated his career to demystifying the roughly 7,000 languages spoken around the wor ...  Show more

📝 Get FREE Episode Worksheet 🧐 Take English Level Test 👄 Improve Your Pronunciation Learn British English & about British culture in this episode where Charlie, your host, gets Martin from Rock N' Roll English back on the show to explore the cultural significance football has ...  Show more

📝 Get FREE Episode Worksheet 🧐 Take English Level Test 👄 Improve Your Pronunciation Charlie invites a non-native English teacher from Spain on the show to talk about her language learning journey, especially regarding her accent acquisition. This teacher is called Maria and go ...  Show more