Winning words, banished words -- Life of a word, from birth ot death -- Human hands behind dictionaries -- Treasure houses, theft, and traps -- Yarn and clues -- new word meanings -- Smog, mob, bling -- new words -- "Often" versus "offen" -- pronunciation -- Fighting over zippers -- Opening the early English word-hoard -- Safe and sound -- the French invasion -- Magnifical dexterity -- Latin and learning -- Chutzpah to pajamas -- world borrowings -- Pop/soda/coke divide -- Maths, wombats and Les bluejeans -- Foot and pedestrian -- word cousins -- Desultory somersaults -- Latin roots -- Analogous prologues -- Greek roots -- Tough stuff of English spelling -- B in debt -- meddling in spelling -- Of mice, men and y'all -- I'm good -- or am I well? -- How snuck sneaked in -- Um, well, like, you know -- Wicked cool -- the irreverence of slang -- Boy toys and bad eggs -- slang wordplay -- Spinster, bachelor, guy, dude -- Firefighters and freshpersons -- Slam dunk -- the language of sports -- Fooling around -- the language of love -- Gung ho -- the language of war -- Fillibustering -- the language of politics -- LOL -- the language of the internet -- #$@%! -- forbidden words -- Couldn't (or could) care less -- Musquirt and other lexical gaps -- Playing fast and loose with words.
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