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

I'm John McWhorter and let's start with something funny because the topic of this is going

to be something which I must admit I find even funnier.

We're going to go from the headlines.

It's the thing about language that's been circulating on the newswires as they used

to call them and people have been writing me about this.

Well, you know, I've got to fill you in.

But let's just fly around this and go into ever smaller circles with something that has

made me laugh for basically most of my life now.

And it is the wonderful English as she is spoke and it's this poor Miss Begotten Portuguese

man who in 1855 wrote what he called a new guide to the conversation.

I didn't know that we don't use that way in English.

New guide to conversation as it was supposed to be where it was supposed to really help

a Portuguese person learn English but he clearly didn't know English at all and so you have

just 250 pages of exquisite nonsense.

And this is a whole, he tries to write these whole dialogues.

This is a dialogue about fishing and it goes like this.

I practically have this memorized.

That pond, it seems me, many multiplied of fishes, let us amuse rather to the fishing.

Any other person says here there is a wand and some hooks.

A wand.

Silence.

...