That's What They Say
Friday at 4:45 and Sunday at 9:35 AM
That's What They Say is a weekly segment on Michigan Public that explores our changing language. Each week University of Michigan English Professor Anne Curzan will discuss why we say what we say with Michigan Public All Things Considered host Rebecca Kruth.
Latest Episodes
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We sometimes talk about stealing or robbery in terms of "lifting" things, and this is relevant to "heists" as well. -
We will never know some of the informal language that was bandied about among speakers in the time of Beowulf.
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There are so many interesting bits of language in the world, we can’t help but notice. The question is, when you notice someone saying something interesting, should you point it out?
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There's competitive forensics, but there's also forensic medicine, forensic accounting, and forensic linguistics too.
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The word "deadpan" is on the rise, as multiple parts of speech. That "pan" is related to the historical expression “shut your pan."
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Not all of us use the word 'whenever' in exactly the same way, and people are noticing.
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It’s 100% true that people online are asking about sentences like, “I got an a hundred on the test.”
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The way some people use "resonate" doesn't resonate with all of our listeners.
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We can sweep the floor, sweep the board, sweep the stakes, sweep the series – and maybe it will even be called a "clean sweep."
