
The Endless Knot
294 FOLLOWERS
Aven & Mark discuss etymology, history, literature, language, and cocktails, and the sometimes surprising connections between them all.
The Endless Knot
2M ago
Grace Tierney is back with another great book about the word origins, this time “Words Christmas Gave Us"! She regales us with festive stories and we talk about some of the fun traditions and treats of the winter holidays.
It’s been a long, unintended break since our last episode, but we’re happy to be back at it, in time to wish everyone very happy holidays!
Wordfoolery website
Transcript of this episode
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
Redbubble store
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The Endless Knot RSS ..read more
The Endless Knot
10M ago
We spoke with Dr. Anne Curzan about her new book, “Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares about Words”. We talk about language change, inner grammandos, the benefits of learning the rules of texting from one’s students, and of course, surprising connections!
Also, please check out the Defeat Depression fundraising event, and the Sudbury Walk/Run on May 25.
Anne Curzan’s website
Transcript of this episode
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
Redbubble store
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The End ..read more
The Endless Knot
1y ago
We talked to Dr. Karen Carr about the global history of swimming — in myth, folktale, and history. Who swam, who didn’t, and how do the stories different cultures told reflect these patterns? We also talked a bit about Dr. Carr’s next book, all about silver, women, and textiles.
Dr. Carr’s academic website
Dr. Carr’s history website and blog, Quatr.us
Transcript of this episode
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
Redbubble store
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The Endless Knot RSS ..read more
The Endless Knot
1y ago
We discuss the language and history of the ecological sciences, all the way back to the ancient Greeks, and the development of the food chain and food web models of ecological systems. And apologies for the unscheduled hiatus!
Golden Chain Cocktail
Food Web video
Cuckold video and podcast
Frank N. Egerton. “A History of the Ecological Sciences: Early Greek Origins”, Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 82.1 (2001): 93-97
———, “A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 2: Aristotle and Theophrastos”, BESA 82.2 (2001): 149-152
———, “A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 3: Helleni ..read more
The Endless Knot
1y ago
We talk to Melanie Racette-Campbell about her new book, “The Crisis of Masculinity in the Age of Augustus”, and discuss why Roman elite men were particularly vulnerable to a societal transformation that changed their role in the state. What did it mean to be a good man in ancient Rome, and how and why did that change?
Melanie’s book is available here
Transcript of this episode
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
Redbubble store
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The Endless Knot RSS ..read more
The Endless Knot
1y ago
The word “chauvinism” is an unlikely eponym, but it turns out that the story behind it has all sorts of interesting connections. And our discussion of those connections also leads us into the long history of misogyny in the western world, from Eve and Pandora to the Virgin Mary, courtly love, and Victorian womanhood.
Cocktail: Pandora’s Jar, from Nectar of the Gods
“By Jingo” song
Hesiod’s Works and Days
Hesiod’s Theogony
Semonides 7
Transcript of this episode
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
Redbubble store
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike ..read more
The Endless Knot
1y ago
We look at the history of English’s conceptualization of time, and update Mark’s research on spatiotemporal metaphor. Also, words for arrows, the surprising origin of ‘toxic’, and a bit of Latin poetry!
Blue Arrow cocktail
Bow and Arrow cocktail
Transcript of this episode
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
Redbubble store
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The Endless Knot RSS ..read more
The Endless Knot
1y ago
We spoke to Dr. Valerie Fridland about her new book, “Like, Literally, Dude!” and talked about the fascinating role that many ‘errors’ in English speech actually play in communication. We discuss the never-ending changes that English has gone through, the surprisingly sophisticated rules behind our use of ‘um’ and ‘uh’, and much more.
Dr. Valerie Fridland’s website
Like, Literally, Dude!
Transcript of this episode
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
Redbubble store
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The Endless Knot RSS ..read more
The Endless Knot
2y ago
It’s Part 2 of our mega-episode on spelling! This time, we get into some of the notorious mismatches between English spelling and modern English pronunciation. Explaining them takes us all the way back to Phoenician — several times — but maybe, just maybe, some bits of this odd language will make more sense to you when we’re done!
The XYZ Cocktail
Our video on “Spelling”
Christopher Upward & George Davidson, The History of English Spelling (2001)
David Sacks, Letter Perfect (2003)
Kevin Stroud, The History of the Alphabet (audiobook)
NativLang “Thoth’s Pill - an Animated History of Writing ..read more
The Endless Knot
2y ago
We’re wading into the messy world of English spelling in this episode — the first of two, since we couldn’t fit all of the ‘quirks’ of the language into one episode. The history of orthography in English is all tangled up with the history of the alphabet, so in this part we trace some of the twists and turns that resulted in our modern script.
The ABC Cocktail
Our video on “Spelling”
Christopher Upward & George Davidson, The History of English Spelling (2001)
David Sacks, Letter Perfect (2003)
Kevin Stroud, The History of the Alphabet (audiobook)
NativLang “Thoth’s Pill - an Animated Histo ..read more