Q&A | Lexicon Valley from Booksmart Studios | Substack

Q&A

You asked and we answered. Many of you have questions for our resident language expert and so — for paid subscribers only — please enjoy our biweekly Q&A with Columbia University linguist and Lexicon Valley host John McWhorter. Please ask questions in the comments to help make we keep him well-stocked with wonderful queries, from grammar to etymology to really anything at all that strikes you as even tangentially related to language and how we use it.

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The short answer is that it didn't.

Sep 12, 2022

Also, are redundancies like "also ... too" more common nowadays?

Feb 28

Plus: one, two, three ... but first, second, third. Are all languages weird like that?

Feb 16

Also, the existential angst of THERE.

Jan 17

Also, where did the suffix -ly come from?

Jan 5

Also, why do some people "open" and "close" the lights?

Dec 23, 2022

Also, is there a relationship between Navajo and ... Hungarian?

Dec 6, 2022

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