Hosted by Ray Belli · 🇺🇸 US · EN · 128 episodes
Established thought leaders with verified media credentials.
Words for Granted is a podcast that looks at how words change over time. Host Ray Belli uses linguistic evolution as a way of understanding larger historical and cultural changes.
Ray Belli hosts Words for Granted - An etymology and linguistics podcast, a education show with 128 episodes published.
We all know English spelling is inconsistent, but some people have actually tried to change it. In this episode, Gabe Henry, author of Enough is Enuf , explores the historical crusade to make English spelling more "ratio
In this episode, Ray chats with author Laura Spinney about Proto-Indo-European, the ancestral language of hundreds of modern languages spoken by billions today ranging from Western Europe to India. They explore how lingu
In this episode, Ray talks with linguist Valerie Friedland about accents—what they are, where they come from, and why everyone has one. They explore how accents begin in early childhood, how regional speech patterns chan
In this episode, author Danny Bate walks through the alphabet's evolution from its origins in Egyptian hieroglyphs to the letters of the English alphabet familiar to us today. He explains why English spelling became so i
In this episode, Ray chats with Mignon Fogerty, aka the Grammar Girl. "Good grammar" may seem like the epitome of prescriptivism, but when it comes to her "Quick and Dirty Tips", Mignon leans on a more ideologically neut
What can we learn about the nature of translation by reading a warning message in hundreds of different languages? In this episode, Keith Kahn-Harris discusses his latest book, The Babel Message , in which the mundane, m
Rhetoric has a bad reputation. We tend to think of it as a linguistic tool used by polticians and marketing execs to maipulate the masses. While this stereotype is true, rhetoric is more than just snake oil––we use it in
Instead of criticizing deviations from Standard English as "wrong," what if we celebrated them as expressive lingusitic innovations? In this conversation with Valerie, we take a look at some of the quirky features of Eng
What goes into building a language learning curriculum? How do designers choose features within a language learing app? Are some approaches to language learning better than others, or is it up to the indiviudal? In this
Place names are not random––behind the name of every country is a story of how it came to be. From stories of invasion and rebellion to the fantastical and mundane, author Duncan Madden takes us on a journey across the w
In this interview with linguist Danny Bate, we go deep on all things gender––grammatical gender, that is. Why do some languages have gender while others don't? Where does gender come from? What is the function of gender?
Trivia refers to obscure or useless information, but this definition is a far cry from the word's etymology. Trivia, or tri-via , literally means "three roads," and in Ancient Roman times, it referred to three-way inters
In this episode, I speak with Tracey Weldon, linguist and board advisor on the Oxford Dictionary of African American English project. We discuss the origins of AAE, the role of code switching within its speech community,
What does "standing under" have to do with "understanding?" Nothing at all, which is why most of us probably overlook the obvious fact that "understand" is actually a compound word comprising "under" and "stand." In our
In Old English, the word "world", or weorold , did not refer to a place. It was a compound word comprising wer , meaing "man", and ald , meaning "age". "World" literally meant "the age of man", and in many of its earlies
Have you ever wondered how writing was invented - or, how many times it was invented? How many undeciphered scripts has the ancient world left us, and is there any hope in eventually deciphering them? In this interview w
The etymology of "grotesque" is hiding in plain sight: "grotto-esque". Originally, the word was used to describe a style of ancient art that was discovered in underground grottos––or at least what appeared to be undergro
In Ancient Greece, an "idiot", or idiotes , was a "private person", which meant someone who did not hold a political office. In this episode, we explore how the word's modern pejorative connotation emerged. We also look
Though people of extraordinary talents and intellect have always existed, the modern sense of "genius" didn't emerge until the relatively recent 18th century. In Ancient Rome, a "genius" was neither a person nor their br
Most Malay loanwords in English describe the local flora, fauna, and food of Southeast Asia. "Amok", however, is different. Amok, which describes a violent killing spree, is ultimately a Malay word that entered European
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Words for Granted - An etymology and linguistics podcast is hosted by Ray Belli. The show is categorised under education (language) and has published 128 episodes.
Words for Granted - An etymology and linguistics podcast has published 128 episodes.
Words for Granted - An etymology and linguistics podcast regularly covers education, language, learning. It sits in the education category, with a language focus.
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Episodes of Words for Granted - An etymology and linguistics podcast average 35 minutes. a focused format where a clear narrative arc and tight preparation matter most.
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