436 GG Why People Have Always Been Confu...

1157. This week, we look at AI em dashes with Sean Goedecke, software engineer for GitHub. We talk about why artificial intelligence models frequently use em dashes and words like "delve," and how training on public domain books from the late 1800s may have influenced these patte ... Show More

1156. This week, we look at the pronunciation chaos surrounding "forte" and "pianoforte," from the French fencing term meaning "strong point" to the Italian musical direction meaning "loud." Then, we look at "playing the dozens" — the African American insult game with a mysteriou ... Show More

1155. This week, we look at whether it’s actually true that Inuit languages have hundreds of words for snow with Dr. Charles Kemp. We look at how researchers used a database of 18 million volumes to find out how our environment shapes our vocabulary using the Nida-Conklin princip ... Show More

Today the saxophone is a well-known musical instrument, popular across the planet. But, when you learn the story of its inventor Adolphe Sax, you quickly learn it's amazing he survived long enough to invent the saxophone in the first place. In today's episode, Ben, Max and return ... Show More

Prof. Simon Horobin examines how the English language has changed over time, addressing such vexed questions as whether Jane Austen could spell, the fate of the apostrophe and whether people who 'literally' explode with anger are corrupting the language. 

<p>Happy Christmas! It's Bad Gays Live! Relive our reading of the Jack Saul chapter – covering the life and times of the Victorian sex worker and pornographer – from our book <a href='http://badgayspod.com/book'>BAD GAYS: A HOMOSEXUAL HISTORY</a> at Foyles in London, with the ini ... Show More

In this episode, we discuss the life, influences, drawbacks, and positives of the Athenian military leader, philosopher, and historian—Xenophon (ca. 428-354 BC)—who was one of Sokrates' more famous pupils; and the post-Peloponnesian war Panhellenic campaign into the heart of the ... Show More

<p>Dr. Elizabeth P. Archibald of Ask the Past has delved deep into old manuscripts to find pertinent and impertinent advice from the past. In this interview, she discusses the history of how-tos and her new book.</p><p> </p> Learn more about your ad-choices at <a href="https://ww ... Show More

You know the feeling when you try on a dress and realize—it has pockets? Those pockets were more than 500 years in the making! Dr. Hannah Carlson joins us this week to discuss why pockets are still not a staple for womenswear, and how people throughout history—from Queen Elizabet ... Show More

In late autumn, 629 AD, Xuanzang set out for the great university of Nalanda from Chang’an. Across the desert, over the Pamirs, and through multiple robberies, it was an epic journey. As he neared the Buddhist heartlands, he saw Buddhism in decline with its monasteries increasing ... Show More