Word Matters
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Word Matters
Word Matters is a show for readers, writers, and anyone who's curious about the English language. Join Merriam-Webster editors as they challenge supposed grammar rules, reveal the surprising origins behind words, tackle common questions, and generally geek out about the beautiful nightmare that is o...
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An Interview with John Morse, Part 3
Part three of a three-part interview with John Morse, former president and publisher of Merriam-Webster
Hosted by Emily Brewster and Peter Sokol...
An Interview with John Morse, Part 2
Part two of a three-part interview with John Morse, former president and publisher of Merriam-Webster
Hosted by Emily Brewster and Peter Sokolow...
An Interview with John Morse, Part 1
Part one of a three-part interview with John Morse, former president and publisher of Merriam-Webster
Hosted by Emily Brewster and Peter Sokolow...
Episode 100: How did we get here?
It’s our 100th episode, which seemed like a good occasion to answer a listener question of a more personal type: how did we—that is, we three editors—...
Do we repeat ourselves? Very well then, we repeat ourselves.
A listener questions a tautology in one of our definitions and starts us off on a discussion of all types of repetition and redundancy.
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Hackneyed Phrases, Both Old and New
Writing advice often includes hackneyed phrases we’re supposed to avoid. The phrases we're warned against today are different from the ones of yestery...
Tips for Frenchifying Your French
Whether you're hoping to improve your high school French or just order that croissant with more confidence, we have some tips for you.
Hosted by...
Eggcorns, Mondegreens, and Spoonerisms—Oh My!
A discussion of various kinds of slips of the tongue and errors of the ear.
Hosted by Emily Brewster, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolo...
Traveling Words: Luggage, Baggage, and the Recombobulation Station
In the disconcerting event that your travels by air deliver you, but not what you've packed, to your destination, you may find yourself filing a lost...
Skunked Words
Sometimes a word, over time, will take on a meaning that doesn’t play very nicely with its original meaning, leaving a person who knows both meanings...
When Dictionaries Drop Words
We’ve discussed how words come to be entered in our dictionaries before, but today we’re going to talk about removing words from dictionaries. Which w...
Wordle Does Not Make Us Nauseous
Some listeners want to know if working with words professionally makes a dictionary editor better, or worse, at Wordle, and another listener wants us...
The Invention of the Modern Dictionary
The earliest dictionaries were the fruit of one person’s labor, but the 1864 Webster's Unabridged changed all of that.
Hosted by Emily Brewster,...
An Interview with Jacques Bailly, Official Pronouncer for Scripps National Spelling Bee
Jacques Bailly has been the official pronouncer for Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2003—23 years after winning the bee himself. A professor in th...
Nashe's 8 Types of Drunkards Includes No Octopi
An exploration of Thomas Nashe's use of animals as metaphors for those who imbibe heavily; And what *is* the plural of octopus?
Hosted by Emily...
Will 'ect.' become an acceptable spelling of 'etc.'? And if it does, will that be unexplainable or merely inexplicable?
An exploration of spellings—like 'ect.' for 'etc.'—that reflect alternative pronunciations, and the unexplainable favoritism that is shown to 'inexpli...
Corrections, Clarifications, and Grave Transgressions
A visit to the mailbag provides us with a sartorial use of ‘hipster,’ some schooling on 19th century locomotive technology, and a question about sneak...
Uncommon Opposites
We all know how to find opposites by removing prefixes: 'unhappy' becomes 'happy'; 'disagree' becomes 'agree.' Easy peasy. But some words resist prefi...
George Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language'
George Orwell published his famous essay "Politics and the English Language" in 1946, and we mostly wish he hadn't.
Hosted by Emily Brewster, Am...
Linguistic Double Dipping
English borrowed lots of words from French. And it liked some of those words so much it borrowed them twice.
Hosted by Emily Brew...
All About Abbreviations
If brevity is the soul of wit, are abbreviations the language's best jokes?
Hosted by Emily Brewster, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolo...
The History of 'Whistleblower'
Whistleblowers didn't always tell secrets and hipsters weren't always hip. This episode explains how 'whistleblower' and 'hipster' came to have their...
What does it mean to be 'at large'?
First, we'll look at how 'at large' came to be applied to editors, criminals, and sometimes the world itself. Then, we'll trace the word 'large' itsel...
Dictionary Arcana
This week's episode is all about the small details that make up the dictionary. How do we decide the guide words that appear at the tops of pages? Wha...
A Pair of Suffixes and The History of 'Ditto'
The ending of a word can tell you a lot. Just the slight difference between '-ity' and '-ness' can create a wide variety of distinctions and nuance. T...
On Secretly Gendered Language
Most of the time, there's nothing about an adjective that makes it refer only to any gender. And yet, there are some words that get subconsciously use...
How to Order Adjectives
In English, there's a certain way adjectives tend to fall in line. It's natural to hear something like "brown leather wallet," but "leather brown wall...
When Nouns Act Like Adjectives
We all know that nouns have a specific job. So do verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and the like. But what happens when they start moonlighting in other rol...
Dipping Into the Mailbag: 'Yeet,' 'Typeface' vs. 'Font,' and 'Lo and Behold'
We're back to the mailbag this week with some excellent questions, including:
Is 'yeet' ready for the dictionary?
What's the difference be...
The History of the English Language (The Podcast)
English is often called a "Germanic" language, and yet huge parts of it come from Latin and Greek. So: what gives? Here's the story of English, in 17...
Words That Began as Metaphors
Usually, a word begins with a literal, concrete meaning. (Like concrete, for example.) Then, eventually, it starts being used metaphorically. (Hey aga...
Inside Our Citation Files
Our Springfield office holds a file of 16 million alphabetized scraps of paper, each containing a citation for a word. Some of them are from as far ba...
Getting Philosophical About the Dictionary
Should we only enter words everyone knows, or does the dictionary need to cover the obscure as well? The answer is, well, pretty philosophical.
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The Newest Words in the Dictionary
We recently added a whole bunch of new words. Here are some of our favorites!
Hosted by Emily Brewster, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski.
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The Year in Words 2021
Last week we told you about our Word of the Year. This week, we'll get into the rest of the words that made up 2021.
Hosted by Emily Brewster, A...
Our Word of the Year 2021
The word 'vaccine' was about much more than just medicine this year. Here's what we looked at to make it our 2021 Word of the Year.
Read up on '...
Researching Slang (with Ben Zimmer)
This week we're joined by Wall Street Journal language columnist and Spectacular Vernacular podcast host Ben Zimmer! Learn all about Ben's research on...
Why Is There No 'N' in 'Restaurateur'?
First: someone who owns or runs a restaurant is called a restaurateur. What? How did that happen? Is 'restauranteur' a valid word? We'll get into it.<...
'Decimate': Use It However You Want
Few words in the English language get people as riled up as the supposed "incorrect" use of 'decimate.' Does it have to keep its Roman meaning of "red...
What It Means to 'Call an Audible'
How did 'audible' move from the football huddle to general conversation?
And why do we have both 'inexplicable' and 'unexplainable'?
Hoste...