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Language & Linguistics

Language & Linguistics

Learn to investigate family expressions, regional dialects, word formation, language contact, mishearings, shifting meanings, and etymology. A Way with Words supplies memorable cases; dictionaries, dialect archives, corpora, and linguistics research supply the methods for testing them.

Made for Curious language users who want more than trivia: repeatable ways to collect examples, distinguish evidence from a good story, and explain how language varies without treating one dialect as the default measure of intelligence.

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Curriculum

Lessons build in sequence, but you can revisit any topic whenever you need it.

  1. 01

    Course 1

    Words in the Wild

    Start with words close to home, move outward to regional and social variation, then finish by researching a word or construction as a documented, uncertainty-aware dossier.

    12 lessons
    01 Words Close to Home 3 lessons
    1. 01 The Words Families Hand Down
    2. 02 The Words We Wish Existed
    3. 03 The Word-Making Machine
    02 Dialect Has an Address 3 lessons
    1. 01 Can a Word Place You on a Map?
    2. 02 A Wisconsin Language Field Guide
    3. 03 Grammar Has Geography
    03 Language Meets People 3 lessons
    1. 01 Accent, Identity, and Eye Dialect
    2. 02 Words Cross Borders—and Change on the Way
    3. 03 Why the Ear Invents Words
    04 Change and Investigation 3 lessons
    1. 01 Meaning Moves: Awfully, Preppy, and Platform Speech
    2. 02 Etymology Without the Fairy Tales
    3. 03 Capstone: Build a Word Dossier