A Word in Your Ear
च्यानल विवरणहरू
A Word in Your Ear
Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex from the University of Queensland discusses the wonderful and odd aspects of English and many other languages.
हालैका एपिसोडहरू
257 एपिसोडहरू
A Word in Your Ear: Words of the Kitchen
Have you ever thought about why we call the objects in our kitchen whatever we call them?
A Word in Your Ear: Female Phrasing
Professor Roly Sussex unpacks the different ways women communicate, and how these contrasts emerged.
A Word in Your Ear: Analysing the Alphabet
Professor Roly Sussex discusses the origins and uses of our 26 letters, and explains why we don't use a phonetic alphabet.
A Word in Your Ear: Languages of Papua New Guinea
Professor Roly Sussex is joined by ABC Radio Australia presenter Michael Chow, who speaks two and a half Papua New Guinean languages.
A Word in Your Ear: The Language of Advertising
Professor Roly Sussex unpacks the language of some of the most successful adverts and why they have stood the test of time.
A Word in Your Ear: Hedging
Do you call a spade a spade, or do you prefer to be a bit more gentle with the things you say?
Professor Roly Sussex explores the use of hedgin...
A Word in Your Ear: Insults of Yesteryear
Professor Roly Sussex explores how new insults have emerged and why some have disappeared from our vocabulary.
A Word in Your Ear: Food Phrases
Food isn't just something we eat, it's something we speak.
Professor Roly Sussex takes a bite out of the language of food, exploring the differ...
A Word in Your Ear: Diminutives and Nicknames
Arvo, brekkie, sunnies, mozzie, servo...the list goes on.
Professor Roly Sussex explains why us Aussies shorten our words more than anyone else...
A Word in Your Ear: Slang
Young people have always reshaped the way we speak, reinventing new lingo to distinguish themselves.
Professor Roly Sussex unpacks how slang has...
A Word in Your Ear: Open Slather
The English language has developed various regional and social norms that continue to cause confusion.
Professor Roly Sussex addresses some of...
A Word in Your Ear: The Language of Computers
The rise of computer technology forced the English language to adapt, and fast!
But where did these words come from and how did they take root i...
A Word in Your Ear: Successful Languages
What makes a language successful?
Professor Roly Sussex discusses why some languages rise while others fade.
A Word in Your Ear: Pronunciation Problems
As the English language has evolved, various pronunciations, norms, and mistakes have formed.
Professor Roly Sussex takes us through some of th...
A Word in Your Ear: Aussie Phrases
Grab a cuppa and gear up for a chinwag.
Professor Roly Sussex has a yarn to explain great Aussie phrases.
A Word In Your Ear: Contronyms
When you "dust" something, are you removing the dust or adding it?
Professor Roly Sussex unravels the double meanings of contronyms.
A Word in Your Ear: Free For All
Have you got a grammar gripe? Frustrated by a phrase?
Professor Roly Sussex tackles your language queries.
A Word in Your Ear: Footy Names
Ever wondered how your favourite footy teams got their names?
Professor Roly Sussex tackles the phrases of footy.
A Word in Your Ear: Alphabet
Did you know that 70% of the world's languages use alphabets similar to English?
Professor Roly Sussex breaks down the building blocks of the E...
A Word in Your Ear: Puns
If you make your kids cringe with dad jokes, this episode's for you!
Professor Roly Sussex discusses the power of puns, and why language lovers...
A Word in Your Ear: Money
Whether you're rolling in it or down to your last cent, the words we use for money are rich with meaning.
So this week, Professor Roly Sussex t...
A Word in Your Ear: Small Talk
"Hows the weather going?" "What have you been up to?"
Small talk takes up a huge chunk of our daily conversation, but what role does it serve? <...
A Word in Your Ear: Papal Phrases
The death of Pope Francis has set off a linguistic wave as words once reserved for church halls are now hitting the headlines.
Professor Roly S...
A Word in Your Ear: Phrasal Verbs
Phrasal verbs are verbs with more than one word like 'wake up' and 'look forward to'.
There are thousands of them in English and they can be qu...
A Word in Your Ear: Hip-hip-hooray
What is the history of birthdays?
These days, people celebrate with cake, candles, balloons and gifts!
However, after years of celebratin...
A Word in Your Ear: English Dialects
English is Australia's de facto national language and like many nations, us Aussie's have put our own spin on it.
Many Australians are even sur...
A Word in Your Ear: Footy Talk
Nothing gets our gold and green nation going like a good game of sport and in particular footy! Where it's League, Rugby or AFL - our passion runs dee...
A Word in Your Ear: St Patrick's Day
Australia is the most Irish country in the world outside Ireland.
Irish-born immigrants and their descendants have been a feature of the Austral...
A Word in Your Ear: Wild Weather Words
Have you ever heard weather phrases such as 'the wet', 'rain bomb' or 'mizzle' and wonder where they came from or what they actually mean? Roly Sussex...
A Word in Your Ear: Americanisms Part 2
Often times Australians will initially adopt Americanisms ironically but after a while the irony disappears and those words and phrases become part of...
A Word in Your Ear: Hello and Goodbye
Whether you're meeting someone for the first time or you see them every day, the way we greet and farewell someone can say a lot about your culture, m...
A Word in Your Ear: Articulation & Speech Patterns
It's an age old question: 'Haitch' or 'Aitch'? What do the differences in how we pronounce words say about us?
A Word in Your Ear: New Year & Christmas Alliteration
Now that the festive season is done, its time to pack up the decorations, put away leftover wrapping paper and store this year's Christmas cards.
A Word in Your Ear: Giving & Philanthropy
Roly Sussex explores the origins of giving, and words like philanthropy, donations and charity.
A Word in Your Ear: Acronyms & Initialisms
What's the difference between Qantas and the ATO? Roly Sussex will take you into the strange world of acronyms and initialisms.
A Word in Your Ear: Americanisms
Americanisms have had such an impact on our language that ABC's Roly Sussex has recorded over 10,000 of them.
A Word in Your Ear: Spooky Words
Boo! From witches to wicca, Roly Sussex peeks behind the curtain of words like ghosts, spectres, Halloween and haunts.
A Word in Your Ear: The Language of Democracy
With US elections on the horizon, Roly Sussex investigates the language of democracy.
A Word in Your Ear: Italian Cuisine
It's the delicious language of Italy on the menu tonight.
A Word in Your Ear: Echo Phrases
Are you feeling tip-top, hoity-toity or namby-pamby today? Roly investigates the curiosities of echo phrases.