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

I'm John McWhorter, and I want to kick off the year doing something I don't usually do.

I'm going to rip something from the headlines.

Rip it from the headlines.

I know that some of you may be disappointed that I don't do that more often.

I'm tossing around comments about old English and strunken white and bugs bunny, but not what Donald Trump said last week. It's on purpose that I don't do that. I figure there's enough of that being done well elsewhere in the market. But sometimes, you know, you've got to get real. And especially when linguistics can help us understand something that otherwise can seem frustrated or

less politely, just plain stupid. And I'm going to circle in on it. You probably already

know from what the title of this episode will probably be what we're going to do. But let's start from the outside, because that approach is almost always one that

can help us understand something. Put it in context, let's talk about Jeopardy, the game show.

I auditioned once, and I was rejected. I've never gotten over it, but it is a fine show. And recently,

talk about the headlines, there was a sharp young man who gave the answer Gangsters Paradise

when the topic was a song by Mr. Coolio. And he was counted as wrong because the topic was a song by Mr. Culeo, and he was counted as wrong because the answer is

technically Gangsters Paradise. So the idea was that there's a difference between gangster as a

word and gangster as a word. So let's listen to the episode in question.

A song by Culeo from Dangerous Minds goes back in time to become a 1667 John Milton classic.

Nick. What is gangsters paradise lost? Yes. Our judges have re-evaluated one of your

responses a few moments ago, Nick.

You said gangsters instead of gangstas on that song by Kulio.

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