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New Zealander Nigel Richards recently rocked the competitive scrabbling playing world when he became the 2015 French Scrabble World Champion. The World in Words digs into the backstory of the Scrabble genius. Also in the podcast we hear from a researcher who has been observing a slow change in the Scottish dialect – Scots seem to be swallowing their R’s.

When linguist Bert Vaux posted a corpus of words and questions on his Harvard website back in the early 2000’s, little did he know that he would spawn an international meme. The quiz was supposed to test his students’ regional American accents. Did they say soda or coke or pop? Was it a roly-poly or a doodlebug? Do they wear sneakers or gym shoes or tennis shoes? His quiz went viral eventually becoming an international trend on YouTube. In this podcast I speak with writer Debbie Nathan who traced the origins of the meme for the language journal Schwa Fires. And I get to chat with linguist Vaux about what it's like to spark an internet phenomenon.

There’s a new documentary out in movie theaters analyzing stereotypes surrounding the “gay voice.” I’ll talk to linguist Ron Smyth featured in the documentary about those stereotypes and how they translate to other languages. Also, linguist and writer Arika Okrent explains the etymology of the word “disabled.”

This podcast we're headed down to the heart of French-speaking Louisiana. First we'll visit the French language radio station KVPI in Ville Platte, Louisiana. Since 1953 this commercial radio station has been broadcasting daily the local news in French. Even as the number of fluent French speakers dwindles in the area, the station is dedicated to reviving the heritage language. Next we'll head east to visit a public foreign language immersion elementary school in Baton Rouge. Kids spend the majority of their school day speaking either French or Spanish. The school began as a magnet program under East Baton Rouge Parish School System's desegregation order. Finally, we head back to KVPI to hear a little swamp pop. Never heard of swamp pop? Well, you'll just have to listen.

The year is 1793 and Horatio Lord Nelson is given command of the ship Agamemnon. Wait, “is” given command? Shouldn’t it be “was” given command? 1793 is the past, right? In this podcast, Patrick Cox delves into the historical present. And The World’s history guy, Chris Woolf lets the cat out of the bag on the lingo of the high seas. Plus other bits of fun tape. We won’t leave you high and dry.

Welsh is thriving. Or maybe it's not. While it is making a comeback in cities like Cardiff, the language is spoken much less in its traditional rural heartlands. All the same, efforts to keep Welsh alive are considered a model for other struggling languages.

Remember that Verizon commercial where some guy "tests" his cell signal in swamps and deep in the woods and in the middle of rush hour? The "can you hear me now?" guy is based on the real thing. Verizon engineers traverse the country testing signal but they aren't using the phrase "Can you hear me now?" They're using a set of special sentences written in a secret basement lab at Harvard during WWII. More about these Harvard Sentences in the podcast and British Justice Minister Michael Gove lays down the grammar laws for his staff. Gove's not-so-secret list of grammar no-nos.

So, Hollywood finally took note. Piper, the protagonist from the TV series Orange is the New Black named checked the big show, The World with Marco Werman for teaching her the meaning of the word "kibun." Except, well, we never did a story about that word. No worries. Find out what kibun means in the pod. We'll also explore the meaning of the word cowardice. Ever wonder why it's associated with the color yellow? Or the gut? The World's Clark Boyd found the courage to talk with author Chris Walsh about his book, "Cowardice: A Brief History."

Happy Birthday Magna Carta! The groundbreaking document turns 800-years-old this June. The "Great Charter" changed governance as we know it. But while the charter has long been revered, we really only cite a small part of the 5000 word document. So what does the rest of it say? The World's history guy Christopher Woolf explores the lesser known clauses of this great charter. Plus, The World in Words host, Patrick Cox takes a trip to the Salisbury Cathedral to see one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta.

The holy trinity of Icelandic identity is, according to a popular poem, land, nation and tongue. Remove one, and the others will collapse. So will the Icelandic nation survive if, as some predict, the Icelandic language eventually dies out?