This episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe.

As the evenings get darker and colder, this

SimpliSafe on is the sound of peace of mind.

SimplySafe sensors, HD cameras and 24-7 security monitoring protect your home inside and out,

against break-ins, fires, water leaks and more. So you can relax. Visit simplysafe.com.

uk slash pod for an exclusive discount.

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

I'm John McWhorter, and in these times, when so much is uncertain and surprising and novel,

I wanted to share with you today various things about English that are just unexpected.

I want to give you a carefully chosen grab bag, if there's a

such thing, of things that have always tickled me as who to thunk it, just odd things in English,

things that have origins that you would never expect, things that show you what a randomness

language is.

And of course, all of this ends up going back to my endless lesson that you can't say that some way that people are speaking

or something about some language is somehow bad, or that it shouldn't have happened,

because so much of the way the language is now is based

on random changes from a very long time ago

and if we don't wish we were still speaking old English

then what problem could we possibly have with this stage of English that we're

speaking now

which surely will be looked upon by some people and even the near future

is somehow better than the way English is then it It's also arbitrary. The reason that linguists feel that way is

...