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Otherwords
Why Do We Use Cringey Words for Loved Ones?
Season 4
Episode 4
Why do we use such unusual words for the people we love? From baby to bunny, two thirds of American adults refer to their romantic partners by a pet name. And we’ve been doing this for a long time—the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary traces terms of endearment over a thousand years. But where do all these pet names come from?
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How did we get from written words scrunched together without any spaces or symbols to punctuation?
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What are folk etymologies?
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Is TikTok ruining language?
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Are there 'magic' words?
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8:35
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The English language is chock full of sailing jargon but why is that?
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How do we communicate without words? With our bodies. Body language!
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7:14
Headlines have sprung up all over declaring that the Southern American dialect is on its way out.
7:33
Let’s dig deep and find out why certain names simply fall out of fashion.