Who are you looking for?

William Shakespeare.

Based on the best-selling novel.

Tell me a story.

Of the untold love story that inspired Shakespeare's greatest masterpiece.

What story would you like?

Something that moves you?

Starring Jesse Buckley and Paul Meskell.

What shall I do?

Keep your heart open.

Hamnet is a monumental cinematic experience and one of the

best films ever made. Hamnet in cinemas January 9, book tickets now.

From New York City, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.

I'm John McWhorter at Columbia University. I teach linguistics, among other things.

My latest books are Talking Back Talking Black, truths about America's lingua franca,

and words on the move why English can't and won't sit still, like literally.

Anyway, I'm glad to be back after a brief hiatus, and although I have a lot of neat shows

planned as we move on, this week I thought I would just revisit one of our general themes,

because I want to just have a little fun, which is that language is always changing, and not just in terms of slang and

terminology, but sounds in the very way that we put words together, and that this isn't only about

Chaucer and Shakespeare and bygone matters, but the English that we know right now, the way

we're hearing it, the way we're using it, over, especially

...