Slate Debates
A feed from the Slate podcast network featuring episodes with enlightening conversations, opposing views, and plenty of healthy disputes. You'll get a curated selection of episodes from programs like What Next, The Waves, and the Political Gabfest, with deep discussions that go beyond point-counterpoint and shed light on the issues that matter most.
301
What Is a Dictionary, Really?
John Simpson, former editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, talks about life as a lexicographer.
22 min
302
The Invisible Language of Nursery Rhymes
What does "Hickory Dickory Dock" really mean? John McWhorter makes linguistic sense of seemingly arbitrary children's verse.
22 min
303
Word Sex
How Words Hook Up and Make New Ones
34 min
304
Should Shakespeare Get a Modern English Update?
John McWhorter talks with author Jack Lynch about the sacrilege of modified Shakespeare.
43 min
305
Are Emoji a Language?
Gretchen McCulloch talks to John McWhorter about the big meaning behind our favorite little pictograms.
37 min
306
Finding Life in a Dead Language
Ann Patty, author of "Living With a Dead Language: My Romance With Latin," talks about her transformative experience of learning Latin.
25 min
307
Rules Are Made to Be Spoken
Rules Are Made to Be Spoken
28 min
308
The Tragedy of English Spelling
Etymologist and poet Anatoly Liberman says that English is one of the most difficult languages to spell. But we can change that.
25 min
309
Your Brain on Profanity
Benjamin K. Bergen, author of the upcoming What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves, discusses the science of cursing.
31 min
310
Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot!
How an American Revolutionary War figure spawned a new name for a very old game.
25 min
311
The Blaccent: What Does It Mean to Sound Black?
Linguist John McWhorter argues that it makes perfect sense for the speech of black and white Americans to have subtle differences.
26 min
312
A Wild Goose Chase that Stinks from Fish
How did Clupea harengus come to signify a diversionary tactic?
22 min
313
Defecation Presentation
The earliest known citation for “shit show” is from an English-language translation of a 1970s criminal trial in Germany. But what was the word or phrase being translated?
27 min
314
Take This Episode with a Grain of Salt
A phrase with roots in Ancient Rome has confounded English speakers for centuries.
29 min
315
The Full, Firm, Valiant, and Heavy-Hearted Trump
Donald Trump calls people (and publications) he doesn’t like sad. When did that word become an insult?
28 min
316
A British Insult Fit for Trump
A peculiar insult from the north of England has the Oxford English Dictionary stumped.
32 min
317
They Had a Good Year
A pronoun that English borrowed from its Scandinavian neighbors gets new life as a gender neutral alternative to he and she.
35 min
318
The Curious Case of a Conspiratorial Coinage
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk about a mystery word or phrase with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
36 min
319
Tears of Joy, Identity, and a Prism of Isms
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to editors at Oxford, Merriam-Webster, and Dictionary.com about their picks for Word of the Year.
32 min
320
Sleeping Hobos in a Tent, Rush 'Em!
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the early 20th-century origins of a bizarre food-industry code with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
29 min
321
Snoozefest
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the energetic history of the word sleep.
28 min
322
Woody Guthrie's Folk Etymology
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a word that was popularized during the 1940s folk movement with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
27 min
323
A Cat, a Coward, and Female Genitalia
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss the etymological quirkiness of the word "pussy."
32 min
324
A Drone, a Bell, and a Suffix
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo discuss a piece of old American slang with lexicographer Ben Zimmer.
28 min
325
Seven Centuries of F--ks
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk to Jesse Sheidlower, author of The F-Word, about a recent discovery in the history of one our most enduring expletives.
31 min