A Word in Your Ear

Omnishambles? Yoghurt? ABC's Roly Sussex discusses new words and how to pronounce yoghurt.

A frog and toad for the road? ABC's Roly Sussex discusses avoidance language and rhyming slang.

Catchy slogans. Memorable jingles. ABC's Roly Sussex discusses advertising language and memorable catchphrases.

The Easter Bunny? It's raining cats and dogs? ABC's Roly Sussex discusses weather phrases and the origins of Easter.

Hang in there. Get over it. Put up with it. How did these peculiar and 'improper' phrases come to pervade the English language?

Football or soccer? From kicking goals to putting the ball in their court, Roly Sussex discusses his favourite sports idioms.

White house? Mardi Gras? Roly Sussex discusses the muddling of syllables, and the changing face of the full stop.

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.

Feb-RAR-y? Feb-RY? Feb-YOR-ary? How do you say February?

I love you. I adore you. I'm smitten. You drive me crazy. I need you. But why?

Should you stress about stress in words? Roly Sussex explains the surprising origins for why we emphasise the things we do.

Kilometre or KILO-metre? Addicting or addictive? And should you drop the 't' in comfortable?

From utes to the quirks of the English language, Roly Sussex is here to answer all your linguistic questions.

From "authentic" to "Matildas", Roly Sussex returns with some of his favourite words of the past annum.

What are the cultural origins of our names? What makes them more feminine or masculine? And when did middle names become a thing?

From jingles about sun safety to songs about vegemite, Australia's advertising history is full of iconic earworms. But why were they so successful?

Insults are hardly features of polite conversation, but some might say we've gotten a bit soft.

How did we decide what should be capitalised, and what should be lowercase? And why do we capitalise 'I' but not 'me'?

Is it exclamation points, or exclamation marks? What's the deal with the full stop, apostophe and comma?

The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex,  discusses American influences on the English language.

The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex, discusses where to put the emphasis on words.

The word 'old' has come to have some rather peculiar connotations.

Break down, luck out! Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex discusses phrasal verbs.

The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex,  discusses the language of football.

The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex,  discusses the language of being polite.

The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex, discusses terms related to your garden.

The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex,  discusses the effectiveness of signals, symbols and signs.

The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex,  discusses the evolution of the English language.

The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex,  discusses the nicknames we give our favourite sports players.

The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex,  discusses Americanisms.

The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex,  discusses eponyms.

The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex,  discusses echo phrases.

Are we succumbing to American-isms?

The ABC's Lord of Language, the Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex,  discusses spelling and pronunciation.

Depending on whether you're speaking the King's English, the POTUS English, or good old 'Strayan English, the one language can sound entirely different.

Fresh off the back of his European tour, Professor Roly Sussex is finally back in Queensland to share a word in your ear.

Professor Roly Sussex is away on a European tour, but he hasn't stopped sharing his linguistic lessons.

Professor Roly Sussex is away on a European tour, but he hasn't stopped sharing his linguistic learnings. Roly joins Kat Feeney all the way from Estonia in northern Europe.

It's officially 100 days until Queensland can celebrate its Royal Show - the beloved Ekka! But why do we call it the Ekka? And where did the term "sideshow alley" come from? Professor Roly Sussex is digging into the Ekka terminology.

In school, you were probably taught they were the 'doing words'. But are English verbs a bit more complicated than that?  Professor Roly Sussex investigates verbs and how they've evolved over time.

Have you ever, erm, noticed, like, how many times people totally say words they actually don't even need in a sentence?  Turns out, it's a lot. This week, Professor Roly Sussex is culling the redundant words we use to fill the silence.

Are you an 'er', an 'ese', an 'an', an 'ee', an 'ian' or an 'ish'? There are so many different suffixes to describe the place you come from. Professor Roly Sussex breaks down the complexities of demonyms.

Mate? Guys? Confrère?  What's the best way to address a friend, a group of colleagues, or someone you've never even met? Professor Roly Sussex tackles terms of address.

To celebrate the World Science Festival returning to Brisbane, Professor Roly Sussex is breaking down the linguistic science of the Periodic Table.

How did our clothes get the names that they have? From shirts to skirts and everything in between, Professor Roly Sussex is chatting about the origins of our wardrobes.

As a nation are we naturally more reticent about using terms of endearment in public?

Why are some people under the weather and others ill? A fully sick Professor Roly Sussex is talking about words, expressions and idioms for poor health.

What's the origin of family names? Do they come from the profession of an ancestor, a location or are they simply patronymic?  Professor Roly Sussex is chatting about the origin of the surname.

What does the Queen Consort mean? Where does the word throne come from? Professor Roly Sussex chats about the history and meanings of language used when referring to someone royal.

Why do you call a highway... a highway? Professor Roly Sussex is talking about the language of transport in this edition of A Word in Your Ear.

Professor Roly Sussex is chatting about unusual words to add to your vocabulary.

How vulnerable are we to mispronouncing certain words? Professor Roly Sussex is chatting about why some words are more commonly mispronounced than others.

Knives that cut and knights as in shining armour, psychology and psychologists, gnats in the air and gnomes in the garden. Professor Roly Sussex explains why we bother with silent letters.

There's a severe weather warning for dangerous winds at the moment so who better to talk about wind words and idioms than the word wizard himself, Professor Roly Sussex?

Dutch courage, a Dutch auction, and a Dutch oven are expressions that, like ABC Radio's Mike van Acker, have their origins in the Netherlands, but how many words that we use in everyday language come from Dutch? Professor Roly Sussex is chatting about loanwords.

They form the basis of every word we read and every sentence we speak, but where do letters come from? That's just one of the questions for Professor Roly Sussex from students at Ferny Grove State School.

Do women interrupt less and generally use more polite language than blokes? Professor Roly Sussex is chatting about the linguistic war of the sexes.

State of Origin on Sunday so who will you barrack for? In Britain, barracking is about shouting loudly to interrupt someone so why does barracking mean something different in Australia?

Bludgers and bogans, drongos and dunnies or do you buy sangers at the servo? Professor Roly Sussex is chatting about Aussie slang.

Roly Sussex is talking about the cold weather, how we describe and what we wear? A pullover? A sweater, a jumper or a cardigan?

Professor Roly Sussex is chatting about the words you hear most often in politics but which mean the least.

It's that whatchamacallit when Professor Roly Sussex talks about words, language, linguistics and other thingamajigs.

Professor Roly Sussex is chatting about those words, the buzzwords, that come up time and time again. What are they, why do politicians keep using them, and what are they really trying to say?

A bellweather seat, a dark horse, swing states, and dog whistling: common enough expressions in election time, but what are their origins? Professor Roly Sussex is talking politics.

Why do so many languages have a gender for the words but, in the main, English doesn't? Professor Roly Sussex is on hand with an answer.

Sometimes the same word can be pronounced in different ways so does it all depend where the speaker's from? Professor Roly Sussex has an answer to the controversy - but how does he pronounce controversy?

New words in the English language pop all the time. Words like meme and paywall are connected with the digital age in which we now live. But how do new words become formally accepted for use though?

If it's mouse and mice, why isn't it house and hice? And what about tooth and teeth or foot and feet? Who makes the rules and why aren't they consistent? Professor Roly Sussex explains.

De-escalation, incursions and invasions: the dogs of war are barking but, if truth is the first casualty in war, then what happens to language?

Ink wells and blotting paper, milk monitors and chalk: the classrooms have reopened this week, but the language of school has changed and many words that were almost synonymous with the classroom have disappeared from everyday use.

Credenza, console, cabinet and cupboards: do we really keep cups in our cupboards? Professor Roly Sussex explains.

Professor Roly Sussex is chatting about why certain words or expressions disappear or are removed from the English language.

Australian English seems to be adopting more and more expressions from the US, but how many Aussie words and expressions do you think the North Americans are borrowing from us?

What's the origin of our Christmas expressions and how is the festive season talked about in languages other than English?

From which other language did most English words originate? That's just one of the questions from students at Junction Park State School and Professor Roly Sussex is doing his very best to answer.

'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' is an English-language pangram: it's a sentence which contains all of the letters of the English alphabet. But is that the only pangram? Professor Roly Sussex is on a mission to find out.

If you can't say what you mean then how can you mean what you say?

How big is your vocabulary? Former British prime minister and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Winston Churchill is supposed to have had a 60.000 word vocabulary. It's a question about vocabulary that's on the mind of Wesley, a Year 6 student at Durack State School and Professor Roly Sussex is only too happy to help out.

What's the G doing in benign or consign or even gnome? Allow Professor Sussex to explain.

Who was the very first person to speak and where was it? These are questions that have been troubling Eva. She's in Year 6 at St Sebastian's Primary School in Yeronga and Professor Roly Sussex is only too happy to answer.

What language do we use or hear which doesn't mean very much but has an important social function? Professor Roly Sussex is talking about phatic communion.

Prepare for a tongue-lashing from the ABC's word wizard because Professor Roly Sussex is giving the thumbs up to metaphors from body parts.

K-Pop and the Squid Game are just two examples of the popularity of Korean culture, and the new edition of the Oxford English Dictionary has just added more than 20 words of Korean origin.

Actress, manageress, waitress: are those descriptions somewhat antiquated these days or are gendered nouns important so we know who's being talked about? Professor Roly Sussex is chatting about gendered language.

What are the rules when it comes to asking questions in English? Allow Professor Roly Sussex to offer a few answers.

New words are being invented every day, many from social media, but which ones are entering into mainstream dictionaries?

Allegro and mezzaforte, presto and fortissimo. Why is the Italian language so predominant when it comes to musical terms and expressions?

Apolitical and atheist but unlawful and disbelief so why can't we say 'alawful' or 'abelief'?

Why would a glass be called a schooner? Professor Roly Sussex is talking about the origins of words we use to describe beer glasses.

Play with a straight bat if you don't want to be caught off-side because Professor Roly Sussex is chatting about sporting metaphors.

When was the last time you heard someone say ‘cobber’ or ‘ fair dinkum’? Has Aussie slang carked it? Professor Roly Sussex, a man who's never been a few stubbies short of a six-pack, has been doing the hard yakka researching the past, present and future of our everyday lingo.

With much of south east Queensland in lockdown, many parents are assuming the role of teacher. Professor Roly Sussex is helping out his younger listeners with their school-related questions.

Which words are most frequently mispronounced and why are those words so difficult in the first place? Professor Roly Sussex says simplifications like vulnerable have a good phonetic explanation, but that's not always the case.

According to the official Wimbledon website, Queensland's Ash Barty won the ladies singles final and Novak Djokovic won the gentlemen's final, so why not women and men's? Allow Professor Roly Sussex to explain.

How do we know where to put the word stress in English and are there any rules about which words have a stress in specific parts?

Is it atypical or untypical of Roly to return to a topic? Once again, Professor Roly Sussex is talking about prefixes.

The humble prefix: IMpossible to understand how they work or UNpossible to learn them all one by one? Allow Professor Roly Sussex to explain.

The sense of smell as in a dog with a keen nose or a special kind of smell as in a wine with a good nose. In this case, 'nose' is a polysemy. Professor Roly Sussex explains.