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Where do words come from? How do they change over time? What counts as a word, anyway? Language is one of the things that reveal how our minds work, and by exploring the "secret life of words," you'll see the power of words - and what words can tell us about human history, technology, and culture.
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No matter what you call it, the sugary carbonated beverage says something about where you live. The same is true for "y'all," "you guys," "yinz," and "yous," as well as for "subs," "grinders," "hoagies," and "po'boys." Explore America's dialect maps and discover the country's many regional varieties of speech, from the Deep South to Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas.
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Did you know that "girl" used to mean "a child of either sex" or that "nice" used to mean "silly, foolish"? While some words are remarkably stable, many undergo semantic shifts. This lecture surveys the five major categories of semantic change: generalization, narrowing, amelioration, pejoration, and metaphorical extension.
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Turn from the origins of words to pronunciation and the system that underlies the variations in dialects. This lecture dives into such regionalisms as the Southern pen-pin merger and the Midwest vowel shift, as well as the socially constructed judgments people make about different dialects.
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Take on one of the most pervasive binaries in the English language: male and female. This first lecture on gendered lexicon introduces the culture of patriarchy and its effect on English, from the pejoration of words such as "wench" and "girl" to the status of gendered pairings such as "governor" and "governess."
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Shift your attention to Greek, which also heavily influenced the English language of learning. Here you'll uncover a Greek treasury of language - including the word web around the root of "lexicon" ("lexicography," "lexus," "lexeme"). Then you'll turn to the influence of Greek mythology on English.
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In the most decorous of ways, delve into the world of taboo language - the inappropriate lexicon that has the power to make us laugh or blush, to offend or hurt, and to establish solidarity. After learning about the utility and ubiquity of such language, you'll have the opportunity to reflect on the changing standards of What makes a word taboo.
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Contemplate the jargon and euphemisms that reflect the intense relationships and horrifying realities of war. Linguistic play has led to slang words such as "snafu" and "fubar," while euphemisms such as "daisy cutter" and "collateral damage" add a layer of abstraction to the violence and death of war.
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Unlock the English vocabulary with Latin "word webs," a series of derivations that come from the same root. Knowing your Latin bases can help you solve puzzles about the relationship between English words such as "insult" and "resilient," and it helps linguists trace a word's meaning as it changes over time.
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Open the Oxford English Dictionary and you'll find dead words such as "wittol" and distinctly contemporary words such as "ginormous" and "multislacking." In addition to looking at the lifespan of words from birth to death, this lecture also considers "semantics" - the study of how words mean what they mean.
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Adjectives and adverbs are often the source of prescriptive angst. This lecture starts with the distinction between them before charting the history of the sentence adverb "hopefully" and intensifiers such as "really" and "wicked." These examples, as well as concerns about fun/funner/funnest, reveal how people feel about changes in language.
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Continue your study of borrowed words by looking at the Norman invasion of 1066. For several hundred years, the Norman-French held sway over England and brought with them language in the realms of politics, government, law, economy, war, and religion, as well as a variety of idioms.
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Tour the history of English, beginning with its Germanic origins. The story of English is the story of borrowing words - first from Celtic and Old Norse and later from French and Latin. In this lecture you'll see how Old English evolved as it came into contact with the Viking raiders and Roman traders.
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Approach the age-old question of the meaning of "love," but this time like a lexicographer. This lecture unpacks the nuances of this powerful word, the language of intimacy, and the variety of often ambiguous and euphemistic terms for sex. It concludes with an examination of our culture's pervasive use of sports to describe dating.
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