This episode is brought to you by Shopify. With Shopify, 2026 is the year you make it happen. It gives you the tools to build your dream store, online and in person. Plus with marketing built in, it'll help you reach exactly who you need to. Join the millions who've already made the leap, like Jim Shark and all birds, and ring in the new year with Shopify.

Sign up for your £1 per month trial at Shopify.com.uk.

combe.

From Washington, D.C., this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.

I'm Bob Garfield with Mike Volo, and today, episode number 12, titled The Eloquence of Plain English,

wherein we discuss the powerful, understated artistry of Abraham Lincoln.

Hey, Mikey.

What's up, Sheenie?

Okay, the reason I'm laughing instead of like crawling through the ISDN line to punch you in the nose is that that's a reference to something that came up in the last episode. Yeah. Your ignorance of this

epithet against Jews. So now you've learned it. And it sounds to me like you're all aboard.

I mentioned last week that my grandfather-in-law asked me if I was familiar with the word sheenie,

I wasn't. We got an email from a listener named Irvin Huber who points out that the word

sheenie comes up quite a bit in Miller's Crossing, which happens to be one of my favorite

Cohen Brothers movies, which raises the question, how was I not familiar with that word?

You know, we all have gaps in our literacy, even in urbane man such as yourself.

You know, you had me on grip as a synonym for suitcase.

Yeah.

So who among us is the entire dictionary?

I got a hold of the film, Miller's Crossing, and the screenplay, just to prove to myself

that the word sheenie was in there.

And sure enough, it's used at least four or five times, including in the first 40 seconds

of the movie.

...