A few times a year we like to do shows about words and language.
In 2014 we-peace, Dr. Samuel Johnson-live in the golden era of writing and thinking about the English language. If you want to read a series of posts, a cordial argument if you will, among experts like today's guest, Steven Pinker, and linguists like Geoffrey Nunberg, and Mark Lieberman about what it means when political leaders pronounce a certain word, "nucular," you can go to a place like Language Log and hear what they all have to say. In fact, one of our guests today, Michael Erard, launched his new online magazine with a reader survey about language journalism.
Another big change is big data. Today's language mavens have access to enormous data sets that can be analyzed to show how people really do use words, not how they say they do.
Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, spends a lot of his time researching how language collides with human nature. He says it's time the we all got over worrying about every rule of grammar when it impedes good writing and more importantly, a joy to experiment with more interesting prose.
He had lots more to say to Colin during a pretaped interview which you can hear below.
GUESTS:
- Peter Sokolowski is Editor-at-Large at Merriam-Webster. He blogs at Merriam-Webster Unabridged, appears in Ask the Editor videos at Merriam-Webster.com, and was named among TIME’s 140Best Twitter Feeds of 2013
- Michael Erard is a linguist and the author of several books, including ‘Um: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean.” His new project Schwa Fire, a digital publication for long-form journalism about language
SONGS:
- "One Hippopotami" by Allan Sherman
- "The Way You Talk" by Shaffer The Darklord
- "You're Speaking My Language" by Juliette And The Licks
