A Word in Your Ear
258 episodes — Page 2 of 6
A Word in Your Ear: Giving & Philanthropy
Roly Sussex explores the origins of giving, and words like philanthropy, donations and charity.
A Word in Your Ear: Acronyms & Initialisms
What's the difference between Qantas and the ATO? Roly Sussex will take you into the strange world of acronyms and initialisms.
A Word in Your Ear: Americanisms
Americanisms have had such an impact on our language that ABC's Roly Sussex has recorded over 10,000 of them.
A Word in Your Ear: Spooky Words
Boo! From witches to wicca, Roly Sussex peeks behind the curtain of words like ghosts, spectres, Halloween and haunts.
A Word in Your Ear: The Language of Democracy
With US elections on the horizon, Roly Sussex investigates the language of democracy.
A Word in Your Ear: Italian Cuisine
It's the delicious language of Italy on the menu tonight.
A Word in Your Ear: Echo Phrases
Are you feeling tip-top, hoity-toity or namby-pamby today? Roly investigates the curiosities of echo phrases.
A Word in Your Ear: Onomatopoeia
Do dogs go "whoof, whoof", "ruff, ruff" or "wan, wan"? Roly Sussex explores the origins of onomatopoeia.
A Word in Your Ear: The Language of AFL
What's the Aussie origins of the slang, jargon and banter of our nation's greatest footy code?
A Word in Your Ear: Mispronunciation & Mondegreens
A "blessing in disguise" or a "blessing in the skies"? Roly Sussex dives into the elusive mondegreen.
A Word in Your Ear: Pirate Speak
"Wut a way you" might sound like pirate speak, but it’s a common greeting on this Australian island.
A Word in Your Ear: French Influences on Cooking Words
Who knows what sous vide is? What does being out of breath have to do with your soufflé?
A Word in Your Ear: The Language of Gen Alpha
Two teenagers explain the nuances of "rizz", "no cap" and "sigma" to Professor Roly Sussex.
A Word in Your Ear: The Language of The News
How has news language changed over the years? And why do news reporters say words in that fancy way?
A Word in Your Ear: Hedges and Politeness
Do you ever "soften" your language to sound more polite? Roly Sussex explains "hedges", where English soften statements for pleasantry's sake.
A Word in Your Ear: Mispronunciations and Common Mistakes
From mispronunciation to grammatical errors, Roly Sussex explores some of the common mistakes in English.
A Word in Your Ear: English's Newest Words
The Cambridge Dictionary added 3200 new wods to their books last year. So what are they? Roly Sussex is your guide.
A Word in Your Ear: The French Language
Bonjour! This week, Roly Sussex discusses the significance and evolution of the French language.
A Word in Your Ear: Metaphors
We've hit the nail on the head! This week, Roly Sussex discusses the significance of metaphors in everyday language.
A Word in Your Ear: Manners and Politeness
Please & Thank You! This week, Roly Sussex discusses how manners and gratitude are expressed differently around the world.
A Word in Your Ear: Grandparents and 'Cold Turkey'
Marmee? Gram? Gramps? Papa? This week, Roly Sussex discusses the words we use for our older relatives.
A Word in Your Ear: Written vs Spoken Languages
Are all written languages spoken? And are all spoken languages written?
A Word in Your Ear: Pub Names and Bar Chat
From The Churchill Arms to Ye Old Fighting Cocks, there's a whole "alien" language associated with pub talk.
A Word in Your Ear: The Language of Music
Music has the uncanny ability to be understood by anyone, anywhere. But why? And how did music develop its own kind of "language"?
A Word in Your Ear: Feminine and Gendered Language
From ships and professions to family structures and pronouns, Roly Sussex navigates the complex web of gendered language.
A Word in Your Ear: Weather Words with Jenny Woodward
Wind, clouds and rain... ABC's Roly Sussex discusses weather words alongside ABC TV Weather Presenter Jenny Woodward.
A Word in Your Ear: Catchy Phrases
Flat out like a lizard drinking! ABC's Roly Sussex discusses catchy phrases.
A Word In Your Ear: Phonetics and The Sounds of Language
Lips, tongue, teeth and cheeks... ABC's Roly Sussex discusses the sounds of language.
A Word In Your Ear: The Anzac Legacy in Language
Tell me a furphy... What is a brass razoo? ABC's Roly Sussex discusses language used during wartime.
A Word In Your Ear: New Words and The Yoghurt Debate
Omnishambles? Yoghurt? ABC's Roly Sussex discusses new words and how to pronounce yoghurt.
A Word In Your Ear: Avoidance Language and Rhyming Slang
A frog and toad for the road? ABC's Roly Sussex discusses avoidance language and rhyming slang.
A Word in Your Ear: Advertising Language
Catchy slogans. Memorable jingles. ABC's Roly Sussex discusses advertising language and memorable catchphrases.
A Word in Your Ear: Weather Words and Easter
The Easter Bunny? It's raining cats and dogs? ABC's Roly Sussex discusses weather phrases and the origins of Easter.
A Word in Your Ear: Phrase Verbs and the Strange Origins of 'Get'
Hang in there. Get over it. Put up with it. How did these peculiar and 'improper' phrases come to pervade the English language?
A Word in Your Ear: Sports Idioms
Football or soccer? From kicking goals to putting the ball in their court, Roly Sussex discusses his favourite sports idioms.
A Word in Your Ear: Syllables and Full Stops
White house? Mardi Gras? Roly Sussex discusses the muddling of syllables, and the changing face of the full stop.
A Word in Your Ear: Animal Words
Catfishing? Dogfishing? And what about breadcrumbing? Roly unveils the surprising origins of animal-based words, and the unexpected impact those words have had on the language of dating.
A Word in Your Ear: Month Pronounciation
Feb-RAR-y? Feb-RY? Feb-YOR-ary? How do you say February?
A Word in Your Ear: Love Language
I love you. I adore you. I'm smitten. You drive me crazy. I need you. But why?
A Word in Your Ear: Stress & Emphasis
Should you stress about stress in words? Roly Sussex explains the surprising origins for why we emphasise the things we do.
A Word in Your Ear: Pronunciation & Enunciation
Kilometre or KILO-metre? Addicting or addictive? And should you drop the 't' in comfortable?
A Word in Your Ear: English spelling
From utes to the quirks of the English language, Roly Sussex is here to answer all your linguistic questions.
A Word in Your Ear: Words of the Year
From "authentic" to "Matildas", Roly Sussex returns with some of his favourite words of the past annum.
A Word in Your Ear: The World of Names
What are the cultural origins of our names? What makes them more feminine or masculine? And when did middle names become a thing?
A Word in Your Ear: Advertising jingles
From jingles about sun safety to songs about vegemite, Australia's advertising history is full of iconic earworms. But why were they so successful?
A Word in Your Ear: Insults
Insults are hardly features of polite conversation, but some might say we've gotten a bit soft.
A Word in Your Ear: Capitals and Capitalisation
How did we decide what should be capitalised, and what should be lowercase? And why do we capitalise 'I' but not 'me'?
A Word in Your Ear: Punctuation
Is it exclamation points, or exclamation marks? What's the deal with the full stop, apostophe and comma?
A Word in Your Ear: American influences
The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex, discusses American influences on the English language.
A Word in Your Ear: Stress words
The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex, discusses where to put the emphasis on words.