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From Bethune to Rascoe
On the evolving expectations of how a Black woman could and should sound.
 • 
John McWhorter
4:09
4
When Did People Start Talking?
We used to think that language was about 50,000 years old and originated in Europe. We were wrong on both counts.
 • 
John McWhorter
30:11
14
September 2023
Who's Afraid of Ayesha Rascoe?
Is the voice of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday host truly grating or just too Black?
 • 
John McWhorter
32:03
41
What Is Yiddish?
Jewish languages are examples par excellence of the Miami English phenomenon.
 • 
John McWhorter
6:41
8
August 2023
What Is Miami English?
How Cuban Spanish has affected the way people speak English.
 • 
John McWhorter
26:15
7
I Lighted Them Downstairs
More language observations from the "first recorded murder trial in US history."
 • 
John McWhorter
4:11
July 2023
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
On an indictment for the murder of Gulielma Sands, on Monday the thirty-first day of April, 1800.
 • 
John McWhorter
29:11
1
June 2023
I Got Beat
Old Looney Tunes cartoons have great examples of how English verbs often work.
 • 
John McWhorter
2:16
1
I Got My Nails Did!
How English verbs are collapsing.
 • 
John McWhorter
29:50
3
May 2023
Frame Job
The semantically circuitous path that connects “from” and “frame.”
 • 
John McWhorter
4:56
2
To v. Too
Not all languages have prepositions, yet somehow they manage to-ness.
 • 
John McWhorter
27:04
3
When Want Ousted Will
Our verb "will" is mostly used to indicate the future, but it wasn't always that way.
 • 
John McWhorter
4:49
April 2023
Picture of Health
To be healthy is to be whole, literally.
 • 
John McWhorter
23:36
5
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