800 - What Did You Step On? And Is That a Desert or a Dessert?

1099. Do you call it "pop," "soda," or "coke"? We look at the interesting history behind these regional names for carbonated beverages. Then, we look at words where you can use a Q without a U, which might help your Scrabble game.

1098. We talk with cognitive scientist Dr. Vicky Lai about how frequently we use metaphors and what happens in our brains when we hear them. We also look at her research on irony and its effect on emotion, and how people recovering from cancer use metaphors differently depending on how they're doing.

1097. Do you wonder whether "bacon" can be plural? We look at the difference between countable and uncountable nouns. Then, we look at how the Martha's Vineyard accent developed and what it tells us about language and society.

1096. This week, we look at the world of emoji with Keith Houston, author of "Face with Tears of Joy." He discusses the long history of emoji, from ancient origins to early computer character sets, and the formal process of proposing new emoji to the Unicode Consortium. We also look at how emoji can be blends of multiple characters and tell us more about cultural, generational, and political attitudes.

1095. Is “sick” really “good”? This week, we look at how words flip their meanings and why language changes over time. Then, we look at the 1950s idea of "U and Non-U English" and what it tells us about social climbing.