The Endless Knot

Dec 17 2024 133 ep. 66 mins 2.4k

The Endless Knot Podcast artwork

Aven & Mark discuss etymology, history, literature, language, and cocktails, and the sometimes surprising connections between them all.

History Society & Culture Arts

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Episode 123: Words Christmas Gave Us, with Grace Tierney

Dec 17 2024 77 mins

Grace Tierney is back with another great book about the word origins, this time “Words Christmas Gave Us"! She regales us with festive stories and we talk about some of the fun traditions and treats of the winter holidays. It’s been a long, unintended break since our last episode, but we’re happy to be back at it, in time to wish everyone very happy holidays!

Episode 122: Says Who, with Anne Curzan

Apr 30 2024 61 mins

We spoke with Dr. Anne Curzan about her new book, “Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares about Words”. We talk about language change, inner grammandos, the benefits of learning the rules of texting from one’s students, and of course, surprising connections!

Episode 121: The Vesuvius Challenge, with Stephen Parsons

Mar 31 2024 71 mins

Buried deep under volcanic ash lie hundreds of burnt scrolls containing texts from the first century. A new project is driving the work to try to read these chunks of carbon, to uncover new works and open new doors into the past. We spoke to one of the leaders of this project, Dr. Stephen Parsons, about the Vesuvius Challenge, the technical aspects of ‘virtual unrolling’, the p

Episode 120: Swimming in History, with Karen Carr

Feb 29 2024 59 mins

We talked to Dr. Karen Carr about the global history of swimming — in myth, folktale, and history. Who swam, who didn’t, and how do the stories different cultures told reflect these patterns? We also talked a bit about Dr. Carr’s next book, all about silver, women, and textiles.

Episode 119: An Ecological Chain

Jan 31 2024 94 mins

We discuss the language and history of the ecological sciences, all the way back to the ancient Greeks, and the development of the food chain and food web models of ecological systems. And apologies for the unscheduled hiatus!

Episode 118: A Crisis of Masculinity, with Melanie Racette-Campbell

Aug 31 2023 81 mins

We talk to Melanie Racette-Campbell about her new book, “The Crisis of Masculinity in the Age of Augustus”, and discuss why Roman elite men were particularly vulnerable to a societal transformation that changed their role in the state. What did it mean to be a good man in ancient Rome, and how and why did that change?Melanie’s book is available hereTranscript of this episodeT

Episode 117: A Brief History of Misogyny

Jul 04 2023 81 mins

The word “chauvinism” is an unlikely eponym, but it turns out that the story behind it has all sorts of interesting connections. And our discussion of those connections also leads us into the long history of misogyny in the western world, from Eve and Pandora to the Virgin Mary, courtly love, and Victorian womanhood. Cocktail: Pandora’s Jar, from Nectar of the Gods“By Jingo

Episode 116: A Quiverful of Time Arrows

May 30 2023 85 mins

We look at the history of English’s conceptualization of time, and update Mark’s research on spatiotemporal metaphor. Also, words for arrows, the surprising origin of ‘toxic’, and a bit of Latin poetry!Blue Arrow cocktailBow and Arrow cocktailTranscript of this episodeThis episode on YouTubeOur Patreon pageRedbubble storeThis podcast is licensed under a Creative Common

Episode 115: Like, Literally, Dude! with Valerie Fridland

Apr 25 2023 85 mins

We spoke to Dr. Valerie Fridland about her new book, “Like, Literally, Dude!” and talked about the fascinating role that many ‘errors’ in English speech actually play in communication. We discuss the never-ending changes that English has gone through, the surprisingly sophisticated rules behind our use of ‘um’ and ‘uh’, and much more.Dr. Valerie Fridland’s website

Episode 114a: The XYZ’s of Spelling

Apr 04 2023 72 mins

It’s Part 2 of our mega-episode on spelling! This time, we get into some of the notorious mismatches between English spelling and modern English pronunciation. Explaining them takes us all the way back to Phoenician — several times — but maybe, just maybe, some bits of this odd language will make more sense to you when we’re done!The XYZ CocktailOur video on “Spelling”C