Lexicon Valley

I’ve been listening to a podcast that my son recommended: Lexicon Valley, subtitled: A podcast about language, from pet peeves to syntax. If you like language, especially English, I recommend it.

Lexicon Valley was founded in 2012 by Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo. Garfield is a long-time reporter and columnist with various publications from USA Today to Civilization. Vuolo is a producer of various radio shows and podcasts. They hosted the show from 2012 through mid-2016. They have great chemistry and provide lively interaction and commentary, displaying a great breadth of knowledge and wit. They often have guests join them, particularly Ben Zimmer, a lexicographer from the Oxford English Dictionary, which adds depth to the presentations. [The tense is troubling me. They recorded the podcasts years in the past (obviously), but I have been listening to them in the present and to me it’s as if the listening is still happening. So – present tense. Feel free to disagree.]

Vuolo is the researcher when the two hosts don’t have a guest, usually coaxing Garfield to guess about word origins or derivations. They tackle goofy words, for instance bozo, heebie jeebies, seersucker, pumpernickel, and cockamamie. They are entertaining and enlightening. They can range widely (and wildly) from the topic of the day, but always return to it.

One of their guests in 2016 was John McWhorter, a linguist and professor at Columbia University. Shortly thereafter, in what appears to have been a bloodless coup, McWhorter was the host, Vuolo the producer, and Garfield was heard from no more. As far as I can tell, the reasons behind the change have never been publicly explained. No matter – McWhorter is fantastic, very different from Garfield and Vuolo, no less irreverent, but more academic. The 80+ Garfield and Vuolo podcasts are zany and informative; the McWhorter podcasts are wry and educational, exactly what I would expect from him.

I have listened to him before. Some company, maybe the Great Courses, has a series of lectures that McWhorter did 15 or so years ago. I enjoyed him then, I enjoy him now. The podcast topics are one-offs, there is no theme or progression like there was in the lectures, which were styled like a class. The podcasts are about whatever happened to strike McWhorter’s fancy the week he produced them. One thing is certain, the podcast will contain clips from popular culture because McWhorter is an aficionado of show tunes, sit-coms, Looney-tunes, and all genres of music.

Recently and outside the context of the podcast or this post, a college friend referred to McWhorter as a genius. I do not doubt it, the scope and scale of his knowledge is astounding, his memory is phenomenal. As one minor example, McWhorter has been tracking the Loony Tunes shows that he’s watched since he was ten and says that he has watched almost 900 of the 1000 or so that were produced from 1930 to 1969. He appears to remember each one and the topic and the songs contained therein encyclopedically.

[Color trivia — if a language has only two colors – and some of them do – which two? The footnote has the answer, but if you look you might see the answer to the next question.[1]

If a language has only one more color – a third – what is it?[2]

If a language has only a fourth and/or fifth color, which two are they?[3]]

I learn something during every single podcast. Sometimes a misunderstanding is corrected, sometimes I learn about McWhorter. The “abominable” snowman is not detestable or odious, which is what the word means in English. Rather, the word in Nepali, from which abominable is derived (at least with respect to the snowman), means raggedy. There are no known photographs.

McWhorter recounted meeting the cabaret singer Bobby Short. He told Short that he owned every recording Short had ever made, which happens to be true. McWhorter said, “I could tell he didn’t believe me.” Vignettes like this spice up every McWhorter podcasts – he loves telling stories about his young daughters grappling with the nuance and intricacies of learning English. Another one-off personal comment: “every day I am thankful that I can see, that I can hear, and that I don’t have to go to camp.” Apparently, McWhorter did not have a good experience at camp as a child.

There is something for everyone. Shows have been devoted to Hamilton (the musical), Black English,[4] contractions, Strunk & White (he’s not a fan), numbers,[5] the singular “they,” and Proto-Indo-European,[6] among many others.

In one podcast, McWhorter had a throw-away paragraph about the frequentative tense. I had never heard of it, but it turns out there are languages that use a suffix or a prefix to indicate how often something happens.

Lexicon Valley comes in two flavors. The early years with Garfield and Vuolo, who were impromptu and entertaining, with more than a dash of information, and the later years (including now) with McWhorter, who is more scripted and educational but with plenty of wit and color. The key take-away from both versions is that our language is ever-changing, trending toward simpler pronunciation and fluctuating grammar that might be more or that might be less complex. Both approaches work for me and they will work for you if you give them a chance.

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[1] Black and white.

[2] Red.

[3] Green and yellow. The next color is blue, then brown. And now you know why Homer referred to a “wine-dark sea” and “green honey,” the words to denote blue and yellow did not yet exist.

[4] Yes, some people sound Black. To McWhorter it’s as unremarkable as sounding like you’re from Boston or the south. There’s also a show about how southerners talk.

[5] “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe” is 1, 2, 3, 4 in an ancient Gaelic dialect; “hickory, dickory, dock” is 8, 9, 10 in a different Gaelic dialect.

[6] The prehistoric mother of many languages, including Spanish, English, Portuguese, Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), Bengali, Russian, Punjabi, German, Persian, French, Marathi, Italian, and Gujarati.