Can our language tell us if we’re not well?
The words we use can reveal a lot of social information. But in the future, computers will examine our words to detect mental illnesses like dementia and motor neuron disease — even …
Category: politics (page 4 of 7)
Did Melania Trump really plagiarise that speech?
Yeah, she totally did. But how can you tell if someone is copying someone else’s work? How do plagiarism checkers work? And can you beat them?
Linguist Daniel Midgley shows his work on …
Seems the UK is eyeing the exits on the EU, but what would a UK exodus mean for language?
Would language learning be affected? How about Britain’s minority languages? And would the English language even be in the EU at …
It’s the political season in Australia again, and the air is filled with the sound of dog whistles and dead cats hitting tables.
For this show, we turn our attention to political language. What makes a good slogan? What’s behind …
We’re talking about Singapore Colloquial English, or Singlish.
The Singaporean government would love to wipe it out, but Singlish is gaining prestige in the English-speaking world. Oxford is even adding Singlish words to its dictionary. But what is this …
Do you know from Yiddish?
A controversial new hypothesis has surfaced about its origins, but does it stand up to the data? And are you using Yiddish words without even knowing it?
Daniel Midgley speaks with lexicographer Ben Zimmer on …
Ever read a language story, and felt something was a bit off?
Does your keyboard layout affect how you feel about words? Is it true that people couldn’t see the colour blue until modern times? How are you supposed to …
Sometimes English spelling doesn’t make much sense.
But even though many influential people have tried to reform our wacky orthography, the anomalies persist. Will English spelling reform ever work?
Linguist Daniel Midgley spells it out on this episode of Talk …
Are our vocabularies shrinking? Is bureaucratic double-talk a sinister form of code designed to short-circuit original thought?
Author Don Watson thinks so, and explains why in his latest book Worst Words. But how does his view stack up to language …
Social justice is a hot topic right now, and it’s commanding a lot of attention both on- and off-line.
Terms like trigger warning, safe space, and micro-aggressions are erupting into the public awareness. So what’s behind these terms?…
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- CBAA Awards 2018: Best Radio Program — Talk
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- Talkley Award 2018
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