Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left Podcast.

This is a sample of our recent bonus episode, usually only available to members.

These episodes are comprised of our crew of researchers, Amanda and myself all getting

together for a roundtable discussion on topics that we find interesting.

So here's a few minutes for free so you can know what all the fuss is about.

I have a fresh new Words Matter segment.

This is, I think of all the linguistic recurring segments.

We have the Words Matters people's favorite.

That's my interpretation.

That's my interpretation.

That's what this service is.

Today we're going to be talking about vocatives, which I, as with so many parts of language,

you know what they are, but even if you don't know what they're called, that was the case

for me.

You asked me what a vocative was and I wouldn't have been able to tell you, but a vocative

is a direct address form.

It's something that targets a person that's receiving it and it can stand on its own.

A person's name is a vocative, but then also things like Sir, Mr, Boy, Kid, all those

things are vocatives that you could say at a person and it is understood that you're

referring to that person.

And so the book takes this, the book is Words Matter and I've been reading this book as

slowly as I've read maybe any book ever.

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