That's What They Say

By Anne Curzan, Rebecca HectorSociety & Culture Education Language Learning

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Typical duration
5 min
per episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

That's What They Say episodes

November 13 TWTS: Sort of out of sorts
When we are out of sorts, we’re not out of something specific, like socks or letters, but we may be feeling owly.
6 min
November 06 TWTS: When a wave becomes a tsunami
The midterm election coverage was inundated with talk of not just waves but potential tsunamis, none of which, of course, involved an inundation of water.
6 min
October 30 TWTS: A phrase made from "scratch"
Cookies or bread made from scratch sound great, and raise the question of what the scratch is.
6 min
October 23 TWTS: A healthy dose of healthy language
We can be healthy and eating an apple seems clearly healthy, and then there’s the healthy dose of salt, which may not be healthy at all.
6 min
October 16 TWTS: When "f" and "v" were sort of one
If you know how the sound ‘f’ worked in Old English, it suddenly isn’t mysterious why the noun "leaf" with an "f" turns into "leaves" with a "v" when you make it plural
6 min
October 09 TWTS: Why no one is "gonna Pittsburgh"
If I say I’m gonna do it, I don’t necessarily mean I’m headed out the door right now to do it.
6 min
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

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…