Taking Home the Gold in Language

Slate Debates

On today’s episode of Spectacular Vernacular, hosts Ben Zimmer and Nicole Holliday chat about language at the Olympics in Tokyo. They also chat with linguist Arika Okrent about her new book, Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't Rhyme―And Other Oddities of the English Language. (Check out an essay Okrent wrote about the English spelling system.) And finally, we have our first guest joining us for a fun quiz segment that you don’t want to miss.

Do you have any language questions or fun facts to share? Email us at [email protected]. You can also use that email address to let us know if you’d like to take part in a future episode, where we’ll bring in listeners for some challenging wordplay.

Produced by Jasmine Ellis and Cheyna Roth.

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