That's What They Say
Friday at 4:45 and Sunday at 9:35 AM
That's What They Say is a weekly segment on Michigan Public that explores our changing language. Each week University of Michigan English Professor Anne Curzan will discuss why we say what we say with Michigan Public All Things Considered host Rebecca Kruth.
Latest Episodes
-
We can presume things, which may or may not be presumptuous. We can also assume things, which then raises the question of whether things can be "assumptuous." -
For those of us of a certain age, if we whack a tennis ball or a softball too hard or at the wrong angle, we could throw our back out of whack.
-
We sometimes talk about stealing or robbery in terms of "lifting" things, and this is relevant to "heists" as well.
-
We will never know some of the informal language that was bandied about among speakers in the time of Beowulf.
-
There are so many interesting bits of language in the world, we can’t help but notice. The question is, when you notice someone saying something interesting, should you point it out?
-
-
There's competitive forensics, but there's also forensic medicine, forensic accounting, and forensic linguistics too.
-
The word "deadpan" is on the rise, as multiple parts of speech. That "pan" is related to the historical expression “shut your pan."
-
Not all of us use the word 'whenever' in exactly the same way, and people are noticing.
-
It’s 100% true that people online are asking about sentences like, “I got an a hundred on the test.”
