Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. The way I talk here to you into this microphone

is different from the way I talk to my friends, my wife, my colleagues, etc. But it's not a hard line.

Sometimes language and cadence does bleed through from one zone in my life into another.

Today's book is about that happening en masse.

It's by Adam Alexic titled Algospeak.

And it's a look at how the way content creators speak on the internet shapes how the rest of us talk, whether we like it or not.

But he tells NPR's Adrian Ma that this isn't inherently a

bad thing that's coming up. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, helping you understand

why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

One of the beautiful and sometimes bewildering things about the English language is that it's always changing.

I mean, take the words Riz or skibbity, or even the expression to cancel.

It was fairly recently that we started using cancel to mean withdrawing support or denouncing.

And of course, Riz meaning charisma or skibbity, meaning, well, nothing.

Those words didn't even exist just a few years ago.

Now they're used and understood by millions of people.

Now, don't worry if you do not count yourselves among them because our next

guest argues that the way we speak on and offline is evolving at an unprecedented pace. He's Adam

Alexic, who's a creator that posts online under the name Etymology Nerd. He's got a new book

called AlgoSpeak. And he joins us from our bureau in New York.

...