Hey, I'm Ryan Eggled from TV shows like New Amsterdam, The Blacklist, and of course, leave it to Beaver. You're on that? I was the Beaver. Didn't know. And I'm Adam Rose, an actor on TV, blue cardigan guy on your social medias, and Avid Speedwalker. We're the hosts of Small Stupid Stuff, an important new podcast from Studio 71. Ryan and I talk about the big issues, the heavy questions, pressing topics.

Like coffee date etiquette?

Best time to eat cereal.

And of course, whether you put your toilet paper over or under or around.

I don't know what around is.

I don't either, but I'm definitely an over man.

Yeah.

Every episode, we're joined by a celebrity guest who gives us their hottest takes on the stupidest,

smallest stuff.

Jocco Sims, Michelle Carrey, Alex Breckenridge, Pete Haversberger, Amber Childers.

Our goal is to solve the world's problems by finally figuring out the truth about crap that doesn't

matter.

So listen to Small Stupid stuff on Spotify, Apple

podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And watch us on YouTube, new episodes every Tuesday.

Stop.

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

I'm John McWhorter, and this episode is going to be a very special episode in that sense that we used to say about 70s sitcoms.

This episode is going to cross-fertilize with something that I wrote recently in a very different venue,

and specifically, that was about war and peace, of all things. During the pandemic, I decided

that I would finally tackle that 1,200-page book, because, of course, we often didn't have much else to do. And I actually did it,

bit by bit, by bit. And I found that I didn't enjoy it as much as I would like to have.

And I've enjoyed a Russian novel or two or three in my day, but this time I was not having

...