On today’s episode of Spectacular Vernacular, Nicole and Ben talk about how the capital of Ukraine has become a linguistic hot take. They also interview Jessi Grieser, a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville about her new book, The Black Side of the River: Race, Language, and Belonging in Washington D.C. And finally, we bring on a listener for some wordplay. We hope you’re good at figuring out analogies. You could win a year’s membership to Slate Plus.
Do you have any language questions or fun facts to share? Email us at spectacular@slate.com.
Produced by Jasmine Ellis and Asha Saluja
Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:
New York Times: “How Do You Say Kyiv? It Can Be Hard for English Speakers”
NPR “Kyiv or Kiev? Why people disagree about how to pronounce the Ukrainian capital’s name”
Jessi Grieser: The Black Side of the River: Race, Language, and Belonging in Washington, D.C.
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