Interview on WNYC’s “The Leonard Lopate Show” about the most significant words of 2011. (Dec. 13, 2011)
Wordsmith Ben Zimmer talks about the year in words—from “occupy” to “supercommittee” to “bunga bunga” to “tiger mother.” He’ll also look at some of the phrases, like “leading from behind” and “win the future” to tell us what the national vocabulary reveals about 2011. Ben Zimmer writes a biweekly language column for the Boston Globe and is the former “On Language” columnist for The New York Times Magazine. He’s also executive producer of VisualThesaurus.com and Vocabulary.com.
(Show page, streaming audio, download, related Word Routes column, Boston Globe column)