Each story you hear on Planet Money starts with a question.

What happens if we refund tariffs?

Why are groceries so expensive?

At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious

because the forces shaping our world can be hard to see.

Follow NPR's Planet Money wherever you get your podcast and start seeing

how the economy really works.

If you start your car in Florida and go north, you'll gradually see fewer and fewer palm

trees and flamingos until by the time you land in Maine, you are surrounded instead by

moose and maples. The biological term for that gradual shift in plant and animal species

by region is Klein. But it's not only what you see the changes as you travel. What you hear can also shift.

People in Florida and Maine may speak the same language, but the way they pronounce some of the

words is markedly different. From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd. My guest has been

interested in accents for most of her life, at least since

she realized as a kid in Memphis, Tennessee, that her mom and dad, whose first language was French,

did not sound like the other parents. Her new book explores why different accents form,

even across native speakers of English and how they shift not only across distance, but also across time.

Valerie Friedland is professor of linguistics in the English department at the University

of Nevada, Reno, and author of Why We Talk Funny, the Real Story Behind Our Accents.

Valerie, welcome to think.

Thank you.

So excited to talk to you about accents today. I mean, I think for some people,

...