That's What They Say

By Anne Curzan, Rebecca HectorSociety & Culture Education Language Learning

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That's What They Say episodes

October 02 TWTS: Dictionaries get glow-ups too
The New York Times announced that the Merriam-Webster Dictionary “is wordsmaxxing” and NBC News described it as a “glow-up” of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
6 min
September 25 TWTS: The same, just more exact
Concerns about redundancy are back this week. It's the exact same thing we’ve talked about before, but this time about the expression "exact same."
6 min
September 20 TWTS: Fore! It's a lightning round
This may be one of the only times that throw pillows, golf, and curling all get wrapped into the same discussion.
6 min
September 11 TWTS: "Proactive" gets a reaction in advance
While people may agree that being proactive is a positive trait, the word proactive can elicit some very negative reactions, so to speak.
6 min
September 04 TWTS: Cat chasing pixies? There's a word for that
Is your cat running around in circles? Be advised, that kitty might be pixilated.
6 min
August 28 TWTS: Old English, new boundaries
When we talk about Middle English, it suggests that we know when English began and when it ends.
6 min
August 27 TWTS: The cards language deals
There are lots of cards we can still play now, but we’ve lost some good ones too.
5 min
August 14 TWTS: "Hunky dory" is doing just fine
If "hunky dory" means the same thing as "right as rain," then we face the question of how right rain is.
6 min
August 07 TWTS: "Highfalutin" is too good for one spelling
While we may know highfalutin language when we hear it, we don't all agree about how to spell "highfalutin" or where it comes from.
6 min
July 31 TWTS: Be careful what you hear around the scuttlebutt
We exchange scuttlebutt at the proverbial water cooler, and there's an etymological clue in that.
6 min

About That's What They Say

From the publisher's feed

Funner, snuck, and LOL are all things that we're hearing people say these days.That's What They Say is a weekly segment on Michigan Public that explores our changing language. University of Michigan…