Why English uses a dummy subject 'it'

Why is weird spelled like that? Why is yacht pronounced like that? Why is a firefighter a person who fights fires... but a pickpocket is neither a pick nor a pocket? We're so lucky to have linguist Colin Gorrie on the pod to talk about the "disaster" of English spelling and the history you can unearth in pretty much every English word. This one's such a nerdy delight — if you found yourself enraptured by our episode on accents, you're gonna love this one, too.

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Thanks to the Sponsors of Today's Episode!

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Show Notes:

• Subscribe to Colin Gorrie's newsletter, Dead Language Society, here

• I personally really love 'Dog' is a Weird Word (you can find all the Weird Word editions collected here)

• Listen to our episode on The Ridiculously Interesting World of American Accents!

• I reference Wound Man — here's my interview with the art historian on the historical representations of him

• A very weird 1818 illustration of a pickpocket

• Just for fun, a map of Europe with place names in the dominant language of the place

We're currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• New trends you've noticed in the world of MOMFLUENCERS (with Sara Petersen, of course)

• Dark academia — the trends, the themes, the popularity, whatever you want (for an episode with R.F. Kuang!)

• Getting into Gaming as AN ADULT (and especially as a woman or non-binary person) (with Keza Macdonald, author of the new history Super Nintendo)

• Conversion Therapy (how it affects people late into life, how it still exists, etc. etc.)

• Your Parent(s) Died — How Do You Deal with All This PAPERWORK and bureaucracy??? (with death doula Becky Robison)

• What would LIFE AFTER CARS look like?? (With the hosts of the War on Cars pod!)

• KID INFLUENCERS — what happens when your parent puts you on camera before you can really consent?

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment

• As always, you can submit your questions (and ideas for future eps) here

  For this week’s discussion: Just gonna be real basic here and ask... What did you learn from this episode? So many tidbits and delightful explanations!