Tom Scott: Tom's Language Files

S1 · E1 · 2013년 5월 24일

Why Jonathan Ross Can´t Pronounce His Rs 1화

S1 · E2 · 2013년 5월 31일

Fantastic Features We Don't Have In The English Language 2화

S1 · E3 · 2013년 6월 7일

All The Colours, Including Grue: How Languages See Colours Differently 3화

S1 · E4 · 2013년 6월 14일

Why You Swear in Anglo-Saxon and Order Fancy Food in French: Registers 4화

S1 · E5 · 2013년 6월 21일

There's Nothing Wrong With Saying "10 Items or Less": Descriptivism vs Prescriptivism 5화

S1 · E6 · 2013년 6월 28일

Ghoti and the Ministry of Helth: Spelling Reform 6화

S1 · E7 · 2013년 7월 5일

Gender Neutral Pronouns: They're Here, Get Used To Them 7화

S1 · E8 · 2013년 7월 12일

Mele Kalikimaka: Why You Can't Say "Christmas" in Hawaiian 8화

It's not that Hawaiian has a completely different word for Christmas -- it's just that Kalikimaka is the closest that Hawaiian can possibly get to the word Christmas.

S1 · E9 · 2013년 12월 4일

Why Do We Have "Ye Olde"? Obsolete Letters, and the Mysteries of Ye Olde Ming 9화

Why do we say "Ye Olde"? Why is "Menzies" pronounced "Mingis"? To find out, we have to go back into history.

S1 · E10 · 2013년 12월 11일

Adjectival Order: Why A "Big Red Balloon", not a "Red Big Balloon"? 10화

The order of adjectives is one of those wonderful linguistic things that no-one really notices until it's pointed out to them.

S1 · E11 · 2013년 12월 17일

Why You Can Tweet More In Japanese: What Counts As A Character? 11화

Twitter was set up to support 140 characters. And in the English alphabet, that's easy to understand: a character is a letter, number, space or punctuation mark. People more or less agree with computers there. And if it was twenty years ago, that's exactly how the system would work. That far, no further.

S1 · E12 · 2013년 12월 20일

Making Flaps Vibrate In Your Throat: Voicing 12화

There's an interesting thing about English that hardly anyone thinks about. There are two "th" sounds. And if you want to know why it took me twenty-one takes to record this intro, you try switching them round.

S1 · E13 · 2015년 5월 21일

Why Computers Suck At Translation 13화

Machine translation's a useful tool, don't get me wrong. But if you actually try to use it for regular conversation, it'll fall down really quickly. Why? What makes it so difficult?

S1 · E14 · 2015년 5월 28일

Crash Blossoms and Being Drunk: Ambiguity 14화

One comma can make a lot of difference. Language is ambiguous -- but in some very specific ways. Here's how.

S1 · E15 · 2015년 6월 4일

Why Can't Adults Learn Languages Like Children? 15화

Kids learn languages really easily, don't they? There's this thing in your brain that just works it out -- but it switches off when you're an adult. Right? Well, maybe. But it's not that simple.

S1 · E16 · 2015년 6월 11일

Long and Short Words: Language Typology 16화

Some languages have longer words than others -- but that's not just a simple choice. There's a lot of different ways to mix up morphemes, even if they all mean the same thing in the end.

S1 · E17 · 2015년 6월 18일

What Counts as a Word? 17화

"Word Count" is going to count plenty of things that aren’t words too -- and it doesn’t get to a more fundamental question: what actually is a word?

S1 · E18 · 2019년 7월 15일

why typing like this is sometimes okay. 18화

Language changes over time, and that's fine. Time for a dose of descriptivism, as the Language Files return.

S1 · E19 · 2019년 8월 5일

Why “No Problem” Can Seem Rude: Phatic Expressions 19화

"Hello!" "Thank you!" "You're welcome!" These are all phatic expressions, and people can argue about them.

S1 · E20 · 2019년 9월 2일

The Language Sounds That Could Exist, But Don't 20화

The International Phonetic Alphabet: one sound for each symbol, and one symbol for each sound. Except for the sounds we can't make.

S1 · E21 · 2019년 12월 2일

Can The Words You Read Change Your Behavior? 21화

"Priming" is the idea that the words you read can change the way you act. And yes, there are papers that show an effect: but we also need to talk about the Replication Crisis.

S1 · E22 · 2019년 12월 23일

Why Do We Move Our Hands When We Talk? 22화

Gestures are a really important part of language. But how do we use them, and why?

S1 · E23 · 2020년 2월 17일

The Sentences Computers Can't Understand, But Humans Can 23화

The Winograd schema is a language test for intelligent computers. So far, they're not doing well.

S1 · E24 · 2020년 4월 13일

Abso-b████y-lutely: Expletive Infixation 24화

There are rules in the English language that you've probably never been taught, but you know anyway: how to split apart words with "infixes". But you've never been taught it because some of those infixes are words you probably shouldn't use in front of your high school English teachers...

S1 · E25 · 2020년 5월 4일

The Hidden Rules of Conversation 25화

Gricean Maxims are a vital part of how we understand each other: a set of... well, maybe "rules" is a bit strong. They're guidelines that we follow without realising it. And it's the reason that "asbestos-free cereal" sounds suspicious.

S1 · E26 · 2020년 5월 25일

Ə: The Most Common Vowel in English 26화

"Schwa" is the most common vowel in English. Every English speaker uses it, all the time, but most people have never heard of it.

S1 · E27 · 2020년 8월 24일

Which Is "Bouba", and Which Is "Kiki"? 27화

Sooner or later, I was going to get around to this: it's one of the most famous experiments in linguistics.

S1 · E28 · 2020년 10월 19일

It’s pronounced GIF. 28화

Is there a "right" way to pronounce it? And why is it so complicated?

S1 · E29 · 2020년 12월 7일

How Many Languages Are There? 29화

The answer is, of course, a bit more complicated than you might think.

S1 · E30 · 2021년 3월 22일

Why Shakespeare Could Never Have Been French 30화

Shakespeare sounds a certain way. Why? And why could it only work in English?

S1 · E31 · 2023년 9월 18일

How languages steal words from each other 31화

This is the only pirate reference you're getting from me.

S1 · E32 · 2023년 10월 16일

there’dn’t’ve 32화

This script was a nightmare to pronounce.

S1 · E33 · 2023년 11월 6일

Does the language you speak change how you think? 33화

No. Mostly.