Podcasts about Old English

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 22, 2026 is: stalwart • STAWL-wert • adjective Stalwart is a formal word used to describe someone or something that is very loyal and dedicated or that is physically or mentally strong. // He was a stalwart civil rights supporter throughout his political career. // The football team's stalwart defense only gave up a single field goal in the second half. See the entry > Examples: "Arbour is a stalwart defender of women's rights, having witnessed the struggle for equality during Quebec's Quiet Revolution." — Allison Hanes, The Montreal Gazette, 6 May 2026 Did you know? Stalwart is a word with ancient roots that has lent its stalwart service to the English language for centuries. Coming, via Middle English, from the Old English word stǣlwierthe, meaning "serviceable," stalwart describes people or things that are marked by outstanding strength and vigor of body, mind, or spirit, as revealed by traits such as loyalty and steadfastness, capability and dependability, or physical robustness. Old oak trees, for example, have long been described as stalwart for their imposing stature and endurance. A baseball team's closing pitcher may be deemed stalwart by showing mental fortitude in consistently striking out opposing batters in high-pressure situations. And a stalwart lover is one who, through thick and thin, is never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and hurt you.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 22, 2026 is: stalwart • STAWL-wert • adjective Stalwart is a formal word used to describe someone or something that is very loyal and dedicated or that is physically or mentally strong. // He was a stalwart civil rights supporter throughout his political career. // The football team's stalwart defense only gave up a single field goal in the second half. See the entry > Examples: "Arbour is a stalwart defender of women's rights, having witnessed the struggle for equality during Quebec's Quiet Revolution." — Allison Hanes, The Montreal Gazette, 6 May 2026 Did you know? Stalwart is a word with ancient roots that has lent its stalwart service to the English language for centuries. Coming, via Middle English, from the Old English word stǣlwierthe, meaning "serviceable," stalwart describes people or things that are marked by outstanding strength and vigor of body, mind, or spirit, as revealed by traits such as loyalty and steadfastness, capability and dependability, or physical robustness. Old oak trees, for example, have long been described as stalwart for their imposing stature and endurance. A baseball team's closing pitcher may be deemed stalwart by showing mental fortitude in consistently striking out opposing batters in high-pressure situations. And a stalwart lover is one who, through thick and thin, is never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and hurt you.

Read an even deeper-dive into the werewolf trials here: https://weirddarkness.com/wolves-on-trial/Across four centuries of European court records, dozens of men, women, and children confessed to shedding their skins for wolf-hides and hunting under the moon — and the magistrates who heard them believed every word.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/RealWerewolfTrialsREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/43rjhjvpFEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: We're all familiar with the concept of werewolves – they are all over pop culture, movies, television, comic books, novels, and every other medium you could possibly imagine. And while they are considered fictional, or at least in the realm of cryptids, that doesn't mean there aren't true stories of reported werewolves in history. (Real Historic Accounts of Werewolves) *** Just the idea of going to prison is enough to scare people into living a squeaky-clean life, but if you're one of the most dangerous prisoners known to exist, ordinary prison would look like a vacation as compared to life in the Florence ADX Supermax Prison. (Life In The Supermax) *** What was supposed to be a two day trip turned into a maritime mystery when the ship, the MV Joyita was discovered floating with no crew on board. What happened? (The Mysterious Abandonment of the MV Joyita)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding00:01:37.814 = Show Open00:03:32.506 = Real Historic Accounts of Werewolves, Part 100:28:44.978 = Real Historic Accounts of Werewolves, Part 2 ***00:42:51.099 = The Mysterious Abandonment of the MV Joyita ***01:02:49.562 = Life In The Supermax ***01:15:37.977 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“Real Historic Accounts of Werewolves” by Miss Celania for MentalFloss.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p84ut66, Nick Redfern for Mysterious Universe: http://bit.ly/2MFFx5p, WolvesRox on Playbuzz.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p9bjcht, and Tim Flight for HistoricCollection.com:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p87s85sThe short fable, “The Werewolf” was written by Angela Carter: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckt8fn6“The Mysterious Abandonment of the MV Joyita” by Marcus Lowth for UFOInsight.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8sux2j“Life In The Supermax” by Jacob Shelton for Ranker.com's Unspeakable Times: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8u82p9(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: January, 2022Weird Darkness digs into three dark corners this time out — the real men and women who were tried and executed as werewolves across Early Modern Europe, the South Pacific ghost ship MV Joyita found drifting with all 25 aboard vanished, and daily life inside America's most locked-down prison, the ADX Supermax in Florence, Colorado.It opens with the documented history of lycanthropy trials, tracing the term back through the Old English werwulf and the Greek myth of King Lycaon, whom Ovid recorded being turned into a wolf by Zeus. From there the episode walks through the real cases: the Gandillon family, burned in France in 1598 after the witch hunter Henri Boguet arranged their arrest; Thiess of Livonia, an eighty-year-old man tried in 1692 who claimed to be a benevolent werewolf who fought the Devil for the year's harvest; Peter Stubbe, the "Werewolf of Bedburg," broken on the wheel and beheaded on October 31st, 1589; Gilles Garnier, the "Hermit of Dole," burned alive in 1573 for killing and eating children; the Werewolves of Poligny; the Wolf of Ansbach, an ordinary wolf hanged from a gibbet in a wig and beard in 1685; teenaged Hans the Werewolf, executed in Estonia in 1651; fourteen-year-old Jean Grenier of Gascony, spared the stake and sent to a friary; the "Demon Tailor" of Chalons; and the more modern Spanish serial killer Manuel Blanco Romasanta, the "Werewolf of Allariz," who used lycanthropy as his legal defense, alongside the Ludwigslust and Angers cases and the cannibal beggar Swiatek of Poland.From there the show turns to the MV Joyita, the yacht built in 1931 in Los Angeles for director Roland West and named for his wife, Jewel Carmen. On October 3rd, 1955, she left Apia, Samoa, for the Tokelau Islands carrying 16 crew and nine passengers, and vanished; found over a month later on November 10th by the merchant captain Gerald Douglas, she was drifting more than 600 miles off course, partially submerged but afloat thanks to her cork-lined refrigerated hold. Investigators found the cabin lights on, the clocks stopped at 10:25, the radio tuned to the distress frequency, a doctor's bag holding a scalpel and blood-stained bandages, mattresses stacked over the engine, and all four escape craft gone — with the cargo, and all 25 people, never recovered. Captain Thomas Miller took the blame for sailing on one engine, but the theories that followed ran from mutiny to Japanese fishermen, Soviet submarines, pirates, and insurance fraud, with researcher Robin Maugham laying out the mutiny case in his book The Joyita Mystery.The episode closes inside the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, the ADX Supermax that has held Ted Kaczynski, Terry Nichols, Robert Hanssen, Ramzi Yousef, and Zacarias Moussaoui since 1994. Inmates spend 23 hours a day alone in 7-by-12-foot concrete cells with a single 4-inch window angled so the sky and the surrounding mountains stay out of view, communicating through drained toilet pipes and "finger handshakes" through recreation-cage fencing. Former inmates and staff — including warden Robert Hood, who called the architecture itself the control, and prisoner Travis Dusenbury — describe a facility that strips away nearly every trace of ordinary life, the suicide of mentally ill inmate Jose Vega in 2010, and the ongoing lawsuits over medical and mental-health treatment that forced ADX to reevaluate its practices in the mid-2010s.

What does it really mean to look up at the night sky? In this episode, we look at what it means to really know the place where we live and to be known by it. This relationship with place has a name in the Old English – kithship. And since half of the human experience takes place in darkness, this includes our relationship with the night sky. Steve Dudrow, author of The Art of Noticing and a desert night sky enthusiast, joins the conversation to explore how slowing down and paying attention can transform our relationship with the night. If you've ever felt like the stars were just a pretty backdrop, this episode might change that forever.LINKS FROM EPISODE 136:Subscribe to Night Sky Tourist: https://nightskytourist.com/ 2026 Stargazing Guide (FREE download): https://nightskytourist.com/guide/ The Art of Noticing by Steve Dudrow (available only on Amazon): https://shorturl.at/gkl7A The Art Box podcast (co-hosted by Steve Dudrow): https://theartboxpodcast.com/ Phenology Wheel: https://naturescalendar.com/ VISIT OUR WEBSITEVisit the Night Sky Tourist website to book private stargazing experiences, read inspiring articles, and find resources to take your stargazing to the next level. You can find us at: https://nightskytourist.com/ FOLLOW & SUPPORTRate us: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify and Apple PodcastsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/nightskytourist/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NightSkyTouristNewsletter: Sign up at NightSkyTourist.com for exclusive content and updatesQuestions? Email Hello@NightSkyTourist.com

If you like this and want to hear the juicy details of all things BTS Modern Apes make sure to go check out the boys on there growing Patreon. Weekly bonus eps, movie watchalongs, and the highly rated INTERNAL AFFAIRS! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheModernApes https://www.patreon.com/c/TheModernApes https://www.patreon.com/c/TheModernApes Welcome back to another episode of the Modern Apes Podcast with Tristan Bowling & Daniel Bridge-Gadd . It is time for another one of the more popular episodes we do here at TMA....Bracket Wars BABY!!! (And just in time for the 4th of July) This time we are doing something that will likely hit close to home for our audience....BEER! The boys break down a 32 brand beer March Madness style bracket, where there can be only one winner. Obviously Tristan is a Coors light fan through and through, while Daniel is a loyalist to the Anheuser-Busch company and the most popular beer in America(the world) Bud Light. Should make for an interesting battle where we really have no clue who will win. Make sure to leave your thoughts on the on the Tournament. We would love to hear who you thought won, and if you disagree with any of the picks that we made, and why. Then make sure to like, sub, and for the love of all that is holy....smash that notification button so you know when we drop. Chapters: 0:00 Join The Patreon 0:43 Hit the Music 1:06 Opening Riffs 5:21 Hefe vs. Old English 8:19 Tecate vs. Bud Light 9:54 Old Style vs. Stella Artois 12:45 Keystone vs. Lagunitas IPA 16:52 Bud Light Lime vs. Samuel Adams 20:34 Guinness vs. Budweiser 24:47 Busch Light vs. Natural Light 26:33 Fat Tire vs. Steel Reserve 29:35 Olde English vs. Bud Light 30:05 Stella Artois vs. Keystone Light 31:20 Samuel Adams vs. Budweiser 32:11 Busch Light vs. Fat Tire 33:10 Bud Light vs. Stella Artois 34:48 Budweiser vs. Busch Light 35:22 Bud Light vs. Budweiser 39:50 Modelo vs. Rolling Rock 41:11 Natural Ice vs. Miller Lite 43:38 Miller High Life vs. Blue Moon 48:16 Goose IPA vs. Pacifico 48:32 Michelob Ultra vs. Shock Top 49:12 Corona vs. Dos Equis 51:00 Coors Light vs. Rainier 51:35 PBR vs. Heineken 52:50 Modelo vs. Miller Lite 53:32 Miller High Life vs. Pacifico 54:08 Michelob Ultra vs. Corona 54:28 Coors Light vs. PBR 55:03 Modelo vs. Miller High Life 55:26 Michelob Ultra vs. Coors Light 55:33 Modelo vs. Coors Light 55:38 Bud Light vs. Coors Light (Final Show Down) 1:01:19 Patreon Names Wrap Up #funny #male #beer #bros #marchmadness #tournament #tourney #drinks #comedypodcast #podcast #pods #tristanbowling #danielbridgegadd #competition #debate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 28, 2026 is: gainsay • gayn-SAY • verb To gainsay something is to deny or disagree with it, or to show or say that it is not true. Gainsay is a formal word usually used in negative statements. // Although the defendant initially denied involvement in the incident, there was no gainsaying the evidence that the prosecutor presented at the trial. See the entry > Examples: “Whatever you think of it, there's no gainsaying the fact that ‘The Sound of Music' is a remarkably durable vehicle. It's frequently produced, and suffered no lasting damage to its reputation from a live NBC performance in 2013 ...” — Don Aucoin, The Boston Globe, 9 Jan. 2026 Did you know? You might have trouble figuring out the meaning of gainsay if you're thinking of our modern word gain plus say. It should help to know that the gain part comes to us from the Old English word gēan-, meaning “against” or “in opposition to.” (The familiar verb gain comes from Anglo-French and is unrelated.) In Middle English, gēan- was joined to seyen (“to say”) to form gein-seyen, which led to the modern word gainsay. So when you see gainsay, think “to say against”—that is, “to deny” or “to contradict.”

Join The Man of the West for one Old English root, four Rohirric names, and a word that has been galloping through the language since the Eurasian steppe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Madang.Madang is the outdoor living room of the world. Here, we invite you to sit and tune into unreserved, remarkable conversations with renowned authors, leaders, public figures, and scholars on religion, culture, and everything in between.This is the 61st episode of Madang Podcast hosted by Baptist News Global featuring Rev. Dr. Rachel Kessler, who is an Episcopal priest serving as campus chaplain at her alma mater, Kenyon College, and rector of Harcourt Parish in Gambier, OH. An “exvangelical” and progressive Christian influencer, she is known on social media as “The Nerdy Priest.” She earned her PhD in Old English literature from the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, and she teaches part-time in the Kenyon English department. She is the author of Nerd Faith: 60 Second Sprints of Spiritual Guidance for the Occasionally Uncool.On this episode of Madang Podcast hosted by Baptist News Global, Kessler and I talk about her new book, Nerd Faith: 60 Second Sprints of Spiritual Guidance for the Occasionally Uncool. We discuss God, faith, TikTok, Lord of the Rings, deconstructing, and so much more.I am grateful to the many sponsors of this Madang Podcast episode.1.Church PublishingMadang podcast is grateful to Church Publishing for sponsoring this episode. Please order your copy of Nerd Faith: 60 Second Sprints of Spiritual Guidance for the Occasionally Uncool. Please visit www.churchpublishing.org to find all the latest books and resources. Church Publishing Incorporated (CPI) is a leading global, multi-market publisher of a wide variety of books and resources, serving millions of readers. 2. Upper RoomHey Madang listeners, what if your daily devotional connected you to a larger story of God's work in the world?The Upper Room Disciplines is a unique 365-day devotional that follows the Revised Common Lectionary, the three-year cycle of scripture readings used by many churches around the world. Each day's devotion pairs the lectionary scripture with a meditation from one of 53 diverse Christian thought leaders — voices like Willie James Jennings, Joerg Rieger, Chanequa Walker-Barnes, and ME! — writers who bring the texts alive with theological depth and pastoral heart.Whether you're a pastor, a small group leader, or simply someone seeking a deeper rhythm of prayer and reflection, Disciplines offers daily scripture, thoughtful meditations, and prayers to help you encounter God's presence throughout the year.Join thousands of readers who rely on Disciplines as a trusted companion for study, worship, and spiritual growth.Preorder your copy of The Upper Room Disciplines 2027 today and save 20% with promo code MADANG at Store.UpperRoom.org/MADANG.

In this episode of The Wisdom Of … Show, Simon Bowen speaks with Jennifer Hill, CEO and co-founder of OptiMatch, co-founder of MetaBizics LLC, founder of The Jen Hill Tribe, and one of the most interesting thinkers on the question of self-leadership as the foundation for business leadership. Jennifer sold her first company in 2018, has spoken to over 100,000 people from a single stage, hosts the podcast Regarding Consciousness with guests including Bruce Lipton and Gregg Braden, and is building an alignment algorithm at OptiMatch that makes the traditionally unmeasurable work of human connection systematic.Jennifer and Simon build a live visual model in the episode - the CEO of Your Own Life Framework, a three-pillar architecture of Clarity, Courage, and Connection built on the foundation of a regulated nervous system.Episode breakdown00:00 Welcome to The Wisdom Of … Show and introduction of Jennifer Hill03:00 The 2018 exit: what the success moment actually felt like, and what it taught her about building07:30 The lesson about key relationships during acquisition: what she'd do differently12:00 "Who you are as a leader shapes everything you build": the premise behind all of Jennifer's work16:00 Clarity, Courage, Connection: the three pillars of the CEO of Your Own Life philosophy21:30 Creating from a regulated nervous system: what it actually means to build from groundedness27:00 Speaking to 100,000 people from a single stage: what scale teaches you about human transformation31:30 LIVE MODEL BUILD: The CEO of Your Own Life Framework42:00 OptiMatch: building a proprietary alignment algorithm and why human connection can be made systematic47:30 The mismatch of coherence: how misaligned relationships drain energy that could go toward the work51:00 Motivation matching: what OptiMatch measures and why it changes how teams are built54:00 Closing wisdom: "You already have a miraculous life. You've just forgotten how to look for it."56:00 The busyness etymology: what the Old English root reveals about how most leaders are actually operating58:30 The miracle practice: writing down moments of awe, synchronicity, wonder, and miracles every dayAbout Jennifer HillJennifer Hill is a keynote speaker, executive coach, community builder, and technology founder whose work centres on a single premise - who you are as a leader shapes everything you build. In 2018, she sold her first company to a subsidiary of Marcum LLP. Over the past decade she has spoken on hundreds of stages worldwide, including to audiences of over 100,000 people in India. She hosts Regarding Consciousness, a podcast featuring thinkers including Bruce Lipton and Gregg Braden, and founded The Jen Hill Tribe, a global community of entrepreneurs, leaders, creatives, and philanthropists.She is currently co-founding OptiMatch, a platform powered by a proprietary algorithm designed to systematically improve alignment in businesses and communities, supporting stronger relationships, healthier teams, and greater psychological safety. She is a member of Evolutionary Leaders and has helped build two schools.Connect with Jennifer Hill:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferkhill/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenhillspeaker/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GetYourselftheJobWebsite: https://jenniferkhill.com/About Simon BowenSimon has spent over two decades working with influential leaders across complex industries. His focus is on elevating thinking in organisations, recognising that success is directly proportional to the quality of thinking and ideas within a business. Simon leads the renaissance of thinking through his work with global leaders and organisations.Connect with Simon:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonbowen-mm/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialsimonbowen/Website: https://thesimonbowen.com/Get Simon Bowen's personal newsletter for leaders, thinkers, and entrepreneurs:Sign up now: https://thesimonbowen.com/newsletterJoin Simon's Masterclass: Apply The Models Method in your own organisation.Make your thinking visible, make your value undeniable.Watch it now: https://thesimonbowen.com/masterclass

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 13, 2026 is: hale • HAIL • adjective Someone described as hale is in good and often exceptional health. Hale is commonly used in the phrase "hale and hearty." // Their mother remains hale and hearty in her old age. See the entry > Examples: "Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell star [in the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes] as two vivacious all-American showgirls whose friendship is as fast as their attitudes to men are poles apart. Whereas Monroe's Lorelei Lee prizes wealth and devotion in a suitor, Russell's Dorothy Shaw is more inclined towards the hale and hunky ..." — Robbie Collin, The Telegraph (United Kingdom), 2 May 2026 Did you know? English has two hale homographs: the adjective that is frequently paired with hearty to describe those healthy and strong, and the somewhat uncommon verb that has to do with literal or figurative hauling or pulling. (One can hale a boat onto shore, or hale a person into a courtroom with the aid of legal ramifications for resistance.) The verb comes from the Middle English halen (also the root of our word haul), but the adjective has a bifurcated origin, with two Middle English terms identified as sources: hale and hail. Both of those come from words meaning "healthy," the former from the Old English hāl, and the latter from the Old Norse heill. The Middle English hail is also the source of the three modern English words spelled as hail, the verb, interjection, and noun that have to do with greeting.

Come explore the Galloway Hoard with me, a Viking era treasure hoard found buried beneath a field in Galloway, Scotland back in 2014. Silver Viking arm bands, a rock crystal jar dating back to ancient Rome, a silver vessel from 4,000 miles away in present day Iran - these treasures hidden around the year 900 are incredible. But, upon closer inspection, they raise more questions than answers. Is this actually Viking treasure? Arm bands are very Viking. But then why do they have inscriptions on them written in Anglo-Saxon runes, a form of Old English? Why is there a Christian cross? Reference to a Bishop? And what does the mysterious inscription "DIS IS IIGNA F" mean? We'll uncover all of this and more to reveal a tumultuous time in an ever changing world. Support the show! Join the Patreon (patreon.com/historyfixpodcast)Buy some merchBuy Me a CoffeeVenmo @Shea-LaFountaineSources:National Museums Scotland "Discover the Galloway Hoard"Smithsonian Magazine "A Proposed Translation Hints at the Origins of the Mysterious Galloway Hoard"NorthLink Ferries "The Galloway Hoard - an interview with Martin Goldberg"Wikipedia "Galloway Hoard"Shoot me a message! Support the show

They're speaking African American English, according to linguist Lisa Green at the University of Massachusetts Amherst - in other words, "it's not mainstream English with mistakes." Lisa grew up speaking AAE in Louisiana, and since then, her ground-breaking research has found that AAE is based on a system of consistent grammatical rules, pronunciations and definitions. Some call it a dialect, which evolved from the African languages that slaves spoke blended with plantation English; in fact, when someone says, "she aks" instead of "she asks," they might be echoing Old English from centuries ago. Lisa argues that schools need to acknowledge and respect black children's African American English, even while they teach them Standard American English that they need to succeed in broader society.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 5, 2026 is: interloper • in-ter-LOH-per • noun An interloper is a person who intrudes in a place or sphere of activity; they are not wanted or welcome by the other people present. // Summer residents were regarded as interlopers who lacked a commitment to the town's welfare. See the entry > Examples: "... my garden is wildlife friendly, sometimes too friendly. By not being overly concerned about interlopers, it welcomes birds and bugs now, including beneficial insects. They help keep things in balance. Not so welcome are rabbits, but they still find their way in." — David Hobson, The Waterloo (Ontario) Region Record, 16 Apr. 2026 Did you know? If you keep chickens, a coyote loping around in the vicinity of your coop is not welcome. You'd be justified, both semantically and etymologically, in calling such a coyote an interloper. The -loper part of interloper shares an ancestor with the Old English verb hlēapan, meaning "to leap," and the Dutch verb lopen, meaning "to run." (The verb lope does too.) The prefix inter- means "between" or "among," so an interloper is essentially one that leaps in among others (for example, a flock of hens) without an invitation to do so. Interloper made itself at home among English speakers in the late 1500s; the verb interlope, which arrived close in tow in the early 1600s, is likely a back-formation.

 How did a small band of Norman soldiers in 1170 begin 800 years of English control over Ireland?  It started as a deal between rival Irish kings. It ended in plantation, dispossession, and a divided island.  This is the story of how a short-term alliance became a centuries-long occupation, and why it still shapes politics in Ireland today.  Anglo-Normans enter Ireland: Diarmait seeks Strongbow's help. Henry II claims authority; Dublin-centred foothold established. The Pale forms; Normans adopt Irish ways, Old English. Henry VIII breaks with Rome; declares himself King of Ireland. Surrender and regrant changes land and inheritance rules. Elizabeth I's conquest; Nine Years' War threatens English control. Battle of Kinsale defeat; O'Neill's submission follows. Flight of the Earls ends Gaelic political power. Plantation of Ulster seeds division leading to later partition. Cromwell's massacres; “To Hell or to Connacht” resettlement. Full interactive transcript, subtitles and key vocabulary available on the website: https://www.leonardoenglish.com/podcasts/conquest-of-ireland ---You might like:

fWotD Episode 3317: Æthelred the Unready Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.The featured article for Thursday, 4 June 2026, is Æthelred the Unready.Æthelred II (c. 968 – 23 April 1016), known as Æthelred the Unready, was King of the English from March 978 to December 1013 and again from February 1014 until his death. The epithet "Unready" is a pun on his name in Old English, Æðel (noble) and ræd (counsel). He was the son of King Edgar (reigned 959–975) and Queen Ælfthryth.Æthelred was born between 966 and 969, and very little is known of his early life. He came to the throne after the assassination by unknown perpetrators of his older half-brother, King Edward the Martyr (reigned 975–978). The crime deeply shocked people, but Æthelred was too young to be suspected of involvement. Shortly after his accession, Viking attacks resumed after a generation of peace. Minor raids in the 980s escalated to large attacks from the 990s. As the English were rarely victorious in battle, the king and his advisers resorted to giving the Vikings tribute to leave England. In 1002 Æthelred ordered the St Brice's Day massacre of Danes, which is seen by historians as a sign of his increasing paranoia, and this culminated by 1009 in the rise of Eadric Streona to become the most powerful of Æthelred's advisers. Increasingly destructive raids by Viking armies wore down English resistance, and in December 1013 King Swein Forkbeard of Denmark conquered England. Æthelred fled to Normandy, but when Swein died in February 1014 he returned to the throne and drove out Swein's son Cnut. In early 1015 civil war broke out when Eadric Streona murdered close allies of Æthelred's oldest surviving son, Edmund Ironside. Cnut returned soon afterwards and Edmund and Æthelred tried to unite against him, but suspicion between father and son hampered them, as did Eadric's treachery and Æthelred's poor health. Æthelred died in April 1016 and Edmund carried on the war until he died in December and Cnut became the king of all England.Æthelred was only nine to twelve years old when he became king, and during his minority the country was governed by his father's leading advisers, including his mother. When he came of age in the mid-980s, he rejected these advisers and adopted new ones, who persuaded him to grant them property at the expense of the church. By the early 990s he had come to regret the course he had followed and to see the Viking raids as God's punishment for his persecution of the church. The 990s and early 1000s formed the most successful period of his reign, when his advisers were of high calibre and there were major cultural achievements in Latin and Old English literature. Historians writing after the Norman Conquest saw him as a bad king until the late twentieth century, when a new generation reassessed his record and argued that although his reign ended catastrophically, there were significant achievements in the 990s and early 1000s.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:14 UTC on Thursday, 4 June 2026.For the full current version of the article, see Æthelred the Unready on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm neural Joey.

Discover the true meaning of health and why life genuinely begins after 40. In this powerful conversation, chiropractor, storyteller and third‑generation healer Dr Kyle Hulsebus unpacks the ancient origins of the word health, the philosophy behind chiropractic care, and why so many people transform their wellbeing in their 40s and beyond.Dr Kyle shares his “40 Over 40” framework — 40 simple, practical, whole‑being habits designed to help you reconnect with purpose, vitality and wholeness. From breathing and movement to curiosity, culture, laughter and self‑reflection, this episode is a masterclass in living well.“Health literally means a state of wholeness in which all the organs of the body function together at 100%.”“Life really does begin at 40. Everything leading up to that is just practice.”In this episode: • The ancient Old English and Latin roots of the word health • Why health is about wholeness, not disease• The power of storytelling in healing• Why most people seek true wellness between ages 40–55• The philosophy behind the “40 Over 40” program• Outlier habits that transform wellbeing (dance, people‑watching, spontaneous laughter, and more)Perfect for anyone wanting to feel whole, grounded and empowered in their health journey — especially if you're 40+.

Join The Man of the West for a pair of Sindarin words from Shelob's Lair, and three Old English words from the open horse-lands of Rohan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Luke Mills joins me to talk about his article "His Dark Materials," as well as C.S. Lewis' nightmare imagery across his fiction. Among other things, we discuss: [2:08] – Welcome & guest introduction: Dr. Luke Mills, Associate Professor of English at Wingate University [2:57] – Dr. Mills's article: "His Dark Materials: C.S. Lewis's Nightmares as Inspiration" [4:10] – What drew Mills to the topic: Lewis's dreams of lions and the writing of Narnia [5:09] – Lewis's diary (All My Road Before Me) and the wolf-and-sheep nightmare (April 27, 1923) [6:13] – Reading of the wolf-and-sheep nightmare [7:07] – Lewis as an author of both heavenly beauty and horror [7:41] – The Unman in Perelandra and Lewis's vivid portrayal of evil [8:39] – How common were nightmares for Lewis? Insects, specters, and a lifelong pattern [10:29] – Lewis near death: vivid dreams and beautiful visions [11:38] – Etymology of "dream" and "nightmare" (Old English roots) [12:07] – Did Lewis think his dreams were spiritually significant? [12:46] – The Dark Tower and J.W. Dunne's Experiment with Time: precognitive dreams [15:21] – Lewis, Tolkien, and their shared interest in time and dreams [16:29] – Lewis's belief in precognitive dreams and his complicated relationship with Dunne's theories [17:22] – The Dark Tower: the chronoscope and alternate timelines [20:01] – Dreams as portals to other realities; Lewis's strong belief in the supernatural [22:07] – Lewis's imaginative receptivity; running toward and away from something [24:09] – Preface to Paradise Lost, letting the "leash slip," and Lewis's portrayal of evil [26:13] – Other nightmare imagery in Lewis: The Last Battle, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength [27:31] – Ransom's strange dream in Perelandra; the Unman as absurdist horror [30:17] – Lewis and the word "un-man": dreams about his dead father and Perelandra's antagonist [32:24] – Lewis's horror of corpses; childhood trauma of seeing his mother's body [34:10] – Zombie squirrels and a digression to Grove City College [37:11] – Are Lewis's nightmares demonic? Dreams of lions before Narnia [38:24] – Lewis, modernism, surrealism, and the via negativa [40:21] – Till We Have Faces: modernist technique and divinely sent nightmares [43:03] – Aslan as terrifying: the scratch in The Horse and His Boy [46:09] – Mark in the Objective Room at N.I.C.E.: nightmarish images turning him toward the good [47:12] – Closing thoughts; terror and the uncanny as paths toward the good [50:07] – Where to follow Dr. Mills; current research on Lewis's library at UNC (including Lewis's marginalia) As always, if you want to get in touch, email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com Rate the show if you like it and haven't rated it yet.

It's time to uncork the bottle of mythology and folklore to talk about a true English original - Imps!Beginning their lives as horticultural metaphors, the Anglo Saxon 'ympe' appears in all sorts of moralizing, overtly Christian texts, including those written by Alfred the Great - only by the 17th century if you had an imp of your own you could be hanged for the crime.How did this all come about?Well, it's a combination of several factors, including Bronze Age beliefs about Middle Eastern supernatural entities that haunted toilets, bed chambers, and windowsills, the stinking bogs and fens of Ireland and the British Isles, and Medieval explanations for the hierarchies of demons following Lucifer's rebellion against God.We track the imp's evolution from House Spirits made of dough, fed with milk and flour, through to the Witch Hunts of the English Republic, and the 19th century 'Imp Revival' as prompted by Romantic and Gothic literature, fairy stories, and Victorian satire.With a disgraceful number of puns (even more than last month!) and some really weird beliefs, as well as Eleanor reading some Old English, they may be tiny but we've gone in on Imps in a big way. Just don't tell the Witch Hunter General, who for some reason thinks we're keeping our mischievous familiars stashed in our armpits...We also hope you increasingly pleased by our new Bestiary episode art, as drawn by our good friend Tom Peteuil of Creature Castle - check out brand new Imp, Mermaid and Leprechaun merch here and visit the Creature Castle shop for prints and other wonderful things here.Speak to you again on Thursday for this week's Lang Fairy Tale, Graciosa and Percinet, and some no doubt spirited chat about it, before Saturday's Three Ravens Live episode, packed with Sussex folklore, as recorded at Ditchling Bookshop on 16th May!Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, we take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gary has a chat with artist Julie Nicholson about her show, Nostalgia, opening May 21st at CBD Gallery in Sydney. Julie has recently exhibited with CBD Gallery at the Aotearoa Art Fair (NZ), and her work has been widely recognised in national awards such as the Paddington Art Prizre and the Muswellbrook, and held in private collections in Australia and overseas. She co-hosts the popular arts podcast, Art Wank.Her duo solo exhibition, Nostalgia, stems from a sense of homesickness after moving from the UK to Australia at the age of 23. A deep sense of nostalgia has shaped her life, and only recently did she discover that nostalgia was once considered a disease. The works in this exhibition sit within that tension, posing the question of whether nostalgia is something that nurtures us, or something that holds us back.Many of the canvases in the exhibition are split across multiple panels, reflecting the fractured experience of trying to locate familiarity within a foreign landscape. Moments of recognition such as sketching in Berrima in the Southern Highlands, where the landscape can feel momentarily like home are interrupted by distinctly Australian elements, like a palm tree or native plant, which jolt her back into the awareness of distance and displacement.Julie has also titled many of the works using Old English words for landscape elements—such as weald, meaning forest. This reflects her interest in etymology and the evolution of language over time. Just as words shift, fall out of use, and take on new meanings, her understanding of the Australian landscape has also changed. Language, like memory, holds a connection to the past while continually adapting to the present, mirroring her experience of navigating place, identity, and belonging. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Good afternoon, I'm _____ with today's episode of EZ News. Tai-Ex opening The Tai-Ex opened down 76-points this morning from Friday's close, at 41,095 on turnover of 9.8-billion N-T. The market lost 1.39-per cent on Friday after falling back close to the 41,000 point mark, as U-S President Donald Trump wrapped up his summit in Beijing with China's Xi Jinping. FM in Geneva for WHA sidelines events Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung will be attending events organized by the government and N-G-O's in Geneva this week to coincide with the upcoming World Health Assembly. The trip means that Lin is Taiwan's first top diplomat to have visited the Swiss city during the annual meeting of the global health body. Lin says he has already attended two events there with Health Minister Shih Chung-liang. Taking to Facebook, the foreign minister said he attended an annual symposium organized by the European Federation of Taiwan Health Alliance and a banquet (宴會) hosted by the health ministers and permanent representatives of allied nations in Geneva. Taiwan's representative office in Geneva, says Lin and Shih also held a press event on Sunday to release a government-produced promotional video calling for Taiwan's inclusion in the W-H-A. Japan variety goods chain 3coins to open 1st shop in Taiwan in August And, Japanese discount variety goods chain, 3 coins, is slated to open its first outlet here in Taiwan in August. The company says its first store will open in an Eslite Spectrum outlet located on Wuchang Street in Taipei's Ximending business district. 3coins' has a pricing strategy in Japan of charging only 300 Japanese yen, or about 60 N-T for most of the products it displays The retailer provides a wide range of products, from kitchenware to cosmetics and beauty goods, and seasonal (季節性的) merchandise. Competing Discount Japanese variety chain, Daiso, opened its first shop in Taiwan in the early 2000s. Ukraine conducts large-scale drone strikes on Russia, killing 4 and wounding a dozen others Ukraine conducts large-scale drone strikes on Russia, killing 4 and wounding a dozen others. AP correspondent Julie Walker reports Canada Confirms Hantavirus in One from Cruise Canada's national health agency confirms that one of four Canadians returning from a cruise ship with a hantavirus outbreak has tested positive. The Public Health Agency of Canada announced the positive test Sunday, following initial reports from the public health officer for the province of British Columbia. The individual, part of a couple in their 70s from the Yukon, is hospitalized in Victoria. The other three travelers are also in isolation. The outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius has resulted in three deaths and 10 confirmed cases. The agency states the risk to the general Canadian population remains (保持) low and is working with the World Health Organization on the investigation. Oldest Surviving English Poem Discovered Researchers in Dublin have uncovered the oldest surviving English poem in a Roman library. The poem, "Caedmon's Hymn," was composed in Old English by a Northumbrian worker in the seventh century. It appears within the Latin text "Ecclesiastical (教會的) History of the English People" by the monk known as the Venerable Bede. The discovery highlights the diffusion of the English language centuries earlier than previously believed. The manuscript had a complex history, traveling across Europe and the Atlantic before being found in Rome's public library. The library's digitization (數位化) efforts may lead to more discoveries. That was the I.C.R.T. EZ News, I'm _____. －－－－以下為 SoundOn 動態廣告－－－－ 找工作不再焦慮！ 參加YS鋼鐵人職場體驗計畫，讓你在職場脫穎而出！ 專為18-29歲青年打造的免費職涯資源： 1.職涯導師陪伴精準求職 2.60小時實戰工作坊 3.知名企業3-5天職場體驗 6/14前報名迎戰三大職場試煉，煉就鋼鐵通才：https://sofm.pse.is/93x2eu -- 左岸咖啡館乘載巴黎塞納河左岸的人文底蘊，還有每個人對法式生活的美好嚮往。 走進左岸咖啡館，點一杯深焙濃郁的曼特寧風味咖啡，用極致香醇喚醒法式浪漫的靈魂… 享受一個人的獨白時光☕ 我在左岸咖啡館

#705 It comes from the Old English word, punian, which means, to beat, crush or pulverize.

If you know how the sound "f" worked in Old English, it suddenly isn't mysterious why the "f" in "leaf" turns into a "v" in the plural form "leaves."

Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠---Just over one thousand years ago, an unknown scribe committed to vellum a fantastical tale of swordsmen and sea monsters, set not in contemporary Anglo-Saxon England, but instead in the distant swamps of Denmark, hundreds of years in the past and hundreds of miles away. In doing so, they would open a portal to one of the most mysterious and murky periods of European history. In this episode of Gladio Free Europe, Liam and Russian Sam return to the mighty mead-halls of the Migration Era for a discussion of Beowulf, the greatest work of Old English and one of the most fascinating documents of the early medieval world.The poem is effectively without parallel. It is a full-length heroic narrative written in Old English, whose eponymous protagonist is attested nowhere else. Though other works in this genre had been created, its sole survival and rediscovery made it the national epic of the English people, often compared to Homer's Iliad in both theme and content. As it was popularized in the early 19th century, the poem became useful to British, German, and even Danish nationlists who sought to use their ancient and medieval heritage to justify present-day political ambitions. But Beowulf does not belong to any existing society. Instead, it is an early medieval document of an idealized antiquity, possibly analogous to the role of King Arthur's Camelot to later medieval Englishmen. Beowulf provides a unique view into the Anglo-Saxon imaginary, illustrating how a deeply Christian population reckoned with their pagan past, and how the insular descendants of North Sea migrants understood their relationship to an ancestral home. But beyond its anthropological value, Beowulf is a mature reflection on ephemerality and loss. The setting, Heorot, is the most glorious of mead-halls, yet the audience knows from the start that it shall one day burn. Beowulf and King Hrothgar are the best of men, yet even their virtues cannot prevent the ruin caused by mankind's own doomed nature. The concept of wyrd, fate, features prominently in the poem. Despite not having a direct influence on the culture of high medieval and early modern England, Beowulf has profoundly shaped contemporary English literature. Its heroic narrative, prefiguring chivalric romance and King Arthur stories by several centuries, would inspire the career of J.R.R. Tolkien and shape the contemporary understanding of early medieval Northern Europe. Comparative studies with Norse and German literary works help us understand more fully the cold, courageous, and sometimes cruel world of early Germanic-speaking peoples. Most importantly, it is one of the most engaging and entertaining pieces of early fiction. Everybody, whether a proud Sea-Geat or a descendant of Cain, ought to read Beowulf.

Episode: 1566 Glottochronology: In which language decays like carbon-14.  Today, a new word for you: glottochronology.

Join The Man of the West as this week's linguistic deep dive includes a look at Estel, and a reminder of the Old English inspiration behind the beginning of the legendarium. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Richard Sparks joins the show to explore the rich intersection between fantasy storytelling and modern gaming, offering insights drawn from his work as a fantasy author, comedy writer, and lifelong gamer. He shares how immersive game worlds—especially sprawling RPGs like Elder Scrolls Online—have influenced his approach to worldbuilding in the New Rock series, where layered histories and interactive-style environments bring his settings to life. Sparks explains how gaming has reshaped audience expectations, pushing writers to create worlds that feel explorable, dynamic, and alive.The conversation dives into the roots of fantasy itself, tracing inspiration back to Old English hero epics and mythological traditions that continue to shape creature design and narrative tone today. Sparks discusses how these ancient archetypes found modern expression in works like The Lord of the Rings, and how he adapts those influences into fresh, engaging creations. By blending the familiar with the unexpected, he builds creatures and cultures that resonate with readers while still offering something new.A major focus of the episode is character development, particularly the balance between relatability and humor. Sparks emphasizes the importance of writing characters who feel human—even in fantastical settings—and how comedy can make them more accessible. He explains how witty dialogue and grounded reactions help readers connect emotionally, even when the story involves dragons, magic, or epic quests.The discussion also highlights Sparks' approach to the classic Hero's Journey, showing how he uses its structure as a foundation while still allowing room for subversion and humor. Rather than treating the framework as rigid, he views it as a guide that can be adapted to suit modern audiences. This flexibility enables him to maintain narrative momentum while surprising readers along the way.Sparks reflects on his journey as an author, offering encouragement to aspiring writers who may feel intimidated by the competitive publishing landscape. He speaks candidly about the challenges of breaking in and the importance of persistence, creativity, and finding one's unique voice. His story reinforces the idea that new authors still have a place—and a chance to succeed—if they remain committed to their craft.Wrapping up, the episode paints a compelling picture of how fantasy and gaming continue to influence each other in meaningful ways. From worldbuilding and character design to narrative structure and humor, Sparks demonstrates that the overlap between these mediums creates exciting opportunities for storytellers. Whether you're a writer, gamer, or fan of fantasy, this conversation offers inspiration and practical insight into crafting engaging, imaginative worlds.

1180. Why does "Ye Olde Shoppe" look old-fashioned? This week, we look at the vanished letters of English — thorn, eth, and yogh — and at why English has so many words that are spelled the same but have different meanings, such as "compact" (an agreement) and "compact" (to press together). The homographs segment was written by Samantha Enslen who runs Dragonfly Editorial. You can find her at dragonflyeditorial.com.The Old English segment was written by Karen Lunde who writes the newsletter I'll Go First. Find her on igofirst.org.

If you work in tech support, you might use snarky slang for problems caused by computer users themselves. There's the acronym PEBCAK, for example, which stands for Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard. And: a lush poem about the sea inspired by kennings, those riddle-like compound terms from Old English. Plus, more vocabulary from RV enthusiasts: If you drive a motor home, what does it mean to be chasing 70? Also: ID10T problem, abasicky and sisper shame, how to pronounce antenna, Billy Blue Blazes, a letter-swapping brain teaser, the origin of if you catch my drift, word-peckers, miigwech, to slag someone, and took off like a ruptured duck. Hear hundreds of free episodes and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org. Be a part of the show: call or text 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; elsewhere in the world, call or text +1 619 800 4443. Send voice notes or messages via WhatsApp 16198004443. Email words@waywordradio.org. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this selection... the aim has been to bring within moderate compass a collection of these songs of the people which should fairly represent the range, the descriptive felicity, the dramatic power, and the genuine poetic feeling of a body of verse which is still, it is to be feared, unfamiliar to a large number of those to whom it would bring refreshment and delight. (Summary from introduction)Genre(s): PoetryLanguage: EnglishKeyword(s): English (121), LibiVox (35), Ballads (16), Scottish (14)

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 16, 2026 is: brazen • BRAY-zun • adjective Brazen describes someone who is acting, or something that is done, in a very open and shocking way without shame or embarrassment. // The opposition party's campaign has not been shy in assailing the brazen corruption of the incumbent for funneling public funds into private coffers. See the entry > Examples: “There are no coyotes on Block Island. However, they have a presence in all of Rhode Island's other communities. ... This all makes sense, because Rhode Island, for the most part, is a heavily wooded area. Furthermore, rabbits, berries, mice and voles are in plentiful supply; add to this a burgeoning population, eventually food may become an issue. This is where the clever coyote is perhaps becoming more brazen and bold while hunting for food in certain neighborhoods.” — J. V. Houlihan, The Block Island (Rhode Island) Times, 30 Jan. 2026 Did you know? The oldest meaning of brazen, which traces back to the Old English word for “brass,” bræs, is a literal one: “made of brass” (you might on occasion encounter “brazen cups” or “brazen doors” in something you're reading). Over the centuries, brazen picked up a number of figurative senses stemming from the physical properties of brass, from its strength to its sound to its color, as when poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote of “The glory that the wood receives, / At sunset, in its brazen leaves.” But it's the hardness of brass that led eventually to the now common “shameless” meaning of brazen. Consider this passage written by the minister Thomas Doolittle in the late 1600s: “... though thinkest it no shame, or if thou dost, thou has a face of brass ... and blushest not ...” A face of brass, or a “brazen face” (a phrase recorded in writing as early as the late 1500s) is one that is more or less immobile, betraying no sign of shame of wrongdoing. Today, brazen is used not just for people who are openly shameless or disrespectful, but for openly shameless or disrespectful behavior, as in “a brazen disregard for the rules.”

Well, we are going to learn some important truth concerning Israel tonight, and we're going to see that Israel is also going to be called Yaakov or Jacob. And there's so much false teaching about that word or name, Yaakov or Jacob, it does not mean deceiver or cheater, or in the Old English, a sir planter. None of that is biblically accurate. https://get.theapp.co/yjjqTo donate please visit us at:https://loveisrael.org/donate/Checks may be sent to:LoveIsrael.org

Stop Longing For What Once Enslaved You And Start Rejoicing In Where God Is Taking You, Don't Look Back!The Bible is a Book that moves forward, not backwards. It was first written in Aramaic, then Hebrew, then in Greek and put into Old Syriac, Old Latin, Old German and finally in Old English. God pulls us forward into the light, Satan lurks in the shadows behind us, looking back puts us in the ring with the Devil. Staying there too long and we become bruised and bloodied in the battle. Today my message is Don't Look Back, and it is a call to putting our eyes on Jesus Christ as He moves us forward here in these last days.“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14 (KJB)

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 27, 2026 is: dross • DRAHSS • noun Something referred to as "dross" is of low value or quality. Dross may also be used as a technical term to refer to unwanted material that is removed from a mineral to make it better. // He's a skilled editor who has a talent for turning literary dross into gold. See the entry > Examples: "Hollywood optimists argue that AI's greatest weakness will be originality. After all, viewers already complain of being deluged with formulaic, low-budget dross churned out by streaming platforms because an algorithm deems it popular." — Tom Leonard, The Scottish Daily Mail, 23 Feb. 2026 Did you know? Dross has been a part of the English language since Anglo-Saxon times. It comes from the Old English word drōs, meaning "dregs," those solid materials that fall to the bottom of a container full of a liquid such as coffee or wine. While dross today is used to refer to anything of low value or quality, its earliest use is technical: dross is a metallurgy term referring to solid scum that forms on the surface of a metal when it is molten or melting—remove the dross to improve the metal. The metallurgical sense of the word is often hinted at in its general use, with dross set in contrast to gold, as when 19th century British poet Christina Rossetti wrote "Besides, those days were golden days, / Whilst these are days of dross."

Each page of Ancient Spells and Incantations holds verses adapted from text unearthed through extensive research—grimoires, letters, and trial transcripts from across the ages and around the world. Many of these were tucked away in university libraries not easily accessible even to one actively in search of them. Enid Baxter Ryce painstakingly researched this collection, finding fragments from across the centuries.Translating some from Latin and Old English herself, Enid has made the spells accessible to today's witches. What was once whispered or chanted, spiraling in cursive, or carved in stone, still echoes like a song. The words that survived connect us to that ancient magic, and we can feel the truth and power.As we marvel at these ancient magical words, we think of our ancestors. Thanks to them, scraps of papyrus, shards of pottery, secret books, and hissed recipes can, hundreds of years later, still show themselves to those who seek them.Find the book and Enid:Website: https://enidryce.com/Social Media: @enidryce on social mediaShops: https://enidryce.com/store-1Pre-Order Ancient Spells and Incantations: https://bookshop.org/p/books/ancient-spells-and-incantations-echoes-of-magic-through-the-ages-and-across-cultures-enid-baxter-ryce/04275e35fceb231a or anywhere books are sold!Enid Baxter Ryce is a writer, artist, and filmmaker who has exhibited at museums internationally, including the National Gallery of Art, the Getty, and the Arnolfini. A descendant of three Salem witches, she comes from a long family history of natural magic practice. Enid has an MFA in visual arts and studied at Cooper Union, Yale University, and Claremont Graduate University. She won the Elizabeth Kray Prize from the Society for American Poets when she graduated from Cooper Union. Enid is currently working on the Getty Foundation Art x Science Initiative project “From the Ground Up: Nurturing Diversity in Hostile Environments,” a forward-looking ethnobotanical study undertaken as the basis of a forthcoming exhibition and an accompanying publication at Armory Center for the Arts. She is the community engagement director and a curator for the Philip Glass Center for Art, Science, and the Environment. Her latest film, War and the Weather, featuring the music of Philip Glass, premiered at the National Gallery of Art Theater in Washington, DC. Enid's work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Artforum, ArtReview, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications.

“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.” —D. H. LawrenceThe sky is a flawless blue above the high mountain desert of Northern New Mexico. Though the air is thick with dust and pollen, transitional winds sharpen the senses and sweep away winter's accumulations. White blossoms rise from the upturned branches of the apricot tree while the ground beneath them cracks with thirst.Strange, precarious, hopeful, persistent—spring is arriving like this.The footnote beneath every casual conversation about the weather is the acknowledgment that winter never truly came. There was no white hush of falling snow, no soft crunch of boots on morning trails. Instead, we drifted mildly between seasons. And now, as one season seems to step over the stalled breath of another, some disturbed, animal part of us still seems to be waiting for what should have been.Meanwhile, my son runs into the kitchen sobbing. He has found his black betta fish floating belly-up among artificial sea grass and smooth glass pebbles. He holds our hands and dares to look again at the body of the fish that drifts motionless with its long, obsidian streamers. He asks us unanswerable questions. Inside this clear bowl with its fabricated landscape is a miniature initiation with a force more surprising and less negotiable than anything he has known.So, we speak softly about the kingdom of the living, and how every living thing will one day cease to be as it was, about energy, and spirit, and how time moves all things.The earth tilts, and so must we. Even in grief, the world continues making its arrangements, asking us to gather ourselves and show up for its manifold losses and resurrections.For one example, house finches are nesting in the transoms above my downtown office, their tangled warbling made of brief, insistent notes, repeated and rearranged over and over again. Their lives are delicate, I know, but their song carries no hint of brevity or mourning.Equinox offers a momentary balance in the forward thrust of light. It reminds us how we, too, can find our way to equilibrium, and thereby resource the heart as it learns to bear its own weather. Framed by all manner of human suffering, current and perennial, simple acts of care can become green shoots rising up through hardened soil. A hand held, a stranger respected, a woman rested—these are all defenses against despair.“Care”—from the Old English caru, cearu—once referred to the burdens that bend the heart: “sorrow,” “anxiety,” “concern,” “grief.” In this sense, the impulse to nurture began as a name for the wound itself. Before it meant to tend or guard, to care meant to ache, to remain near the pain.True care does not hover above suffering, nor does it rescue; it simply shows up with a willing heart and persists. What appears small is not, therefore, insignificant. The heart hears the finch's song and remains willing to listen, not because it is promised anything, not because the world is kind or comforting, but because it still knows how, and that counts for something. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shawnparell.substack.com/subscribe

A strange brew that's hard to resist, even for a modern day microbe. In the war on devilish microbes, our weapons are starting to fail us. The antibiotics we once wielded like miraculous flaming swords seem more like lukewarm butter knives. But in this episode, originally released in 2015, we follow an odd couple, of a sort, to a storied land of elves and dragons. There, they uncover a 1,000-year-old secret that makes us reconsider our most basic assumptions about human progress and wonder: what if the only way forward is backward? Special thanks to Steve Diggle, Professor Roberta Frank, Alexandra Reider and Justin Park (our Old English readers), Gene Murrow from Gotham Early Music Scene, Marcia Young for her performance on the medieval harp and Collin Monro of Tadcaster and the rest of the Barony of Iron Bog. Can't get enough of that sweet, sweet antibiotic resistance content? Then you'll be over the moon about next week's release. It's the podcast cut of our most recent installment of our live show series called Viscera. This one features executive editor Soren Wheeler and Avir Mitra, and it's all about how our millenia's-long war against bacteria came to a tipping point in this modern age. Subscribe or follow our show on your favorite streaming platform and you'll be the first to know when it drops. EPISODE CREDITS:  Reported by - Latif Nasser Produced by - Matt Kielty and Soren Wheeler EPISODE CITATIONS: Articles - Uncovering the multifaceted mechanism of action of a historical antimicrobial (https://zpr.io/mucw6Td6LBxT) by Harrison, F et al, 2026 bioRxv (PREPRINT). In this article Freya and her team describe the mechanisms under which Bald's Remedy actually works. Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Karma as the Law of Responsibility Building 4th Gathering | March 17, 2026 What if karma isn't punishment — and isn't even a scorecard? In this episode, Doug Scott, MA, MSW, LCSW presents a framework drawn from the Ra Material and his own Raian Process Metaphysics that redefines karma as inertia — the simple physics of consciousness in motion — and connects it to what Ra calls the Law of Responsibility. The presentation begins with Ra's striking definition from Session 34.4: karma is inertia, and forgiveness is the brake. The two concepts are inseparable. From there, Doug traces the Latin etymology of responsibility — re-spondere, "to pledge back" — revealing that responsibility is not burden but response-ability: the growing capacity to answer the Creator's eternal calling embedded in every being's nature. Using his Law of Three framework (what he calls teleopotentiation), Doug maps the karmic dynamic onto three forces: the Original Desire as the Affirming Force — the Creator seeking to know itself through us; the Veil of Forgetting as the Denying Force — the necessary resistance that makes genuine choice and growth possible; and Responsibility as the Reconciling Force — the conscious holding of tension between calling and constraint that produces genuine transformation. When that tension goes unresolved, karmic inertia rolls forward. When forgiveness — for-giefan, Old English for "giving away completely" — is applied, the wheel stops. The community discussion that follows is wide-ranging and deeply personal. Participants explore forgiveness as the recognition of shared divinity, the Vedic distinction between mutable and immutable karma, the connection between Jung's shadow complex and karmic inertia, and the clinical principle that forgiveness does not equal approval. Doug shares a personal story of being scammed during COVID and the conscious choice to forgive. Others offer stories of family reconciliation, the practice of compassionate imagination in everyday frustrations, and the contemplative insight that karma may perpetuate through our attachment to doership — and that true release may involve surrendering the illusion of separate agency altogether. The evening closes with a quiet recognition: the brake is always available. Right here. Right now. Topics covered: Ra's definition of karma (Session 34.4) — The Law of Responsibility and its etymology — The veil of forgetting as essential resistance — Teleopotentiation and the Law of Three — The knowing-without-doing gap — Forgiveness as metaphysical brake — Shadow work and karmic patterns — Vedic perspectives on mutable and immutable karma — Forgiveness as radical acceptance — The relationship between doership and karmic perpetuation

What makes a character so compelling that readers will forgive almost anything about the plot? How do you move beyond vague flaws and generic descriptions to create people who feel pulled from real life? In this solo episode, I share 15 actionable tips for writing deep characters, curated from past interviews on the podcast. In the intro, thoughts from London Book Fair [Instagram reel @jfpennauthor; Publishing Perspectives; Audible; Spotify]; Insights from a 7-figure author business [BookBub]. This show is supported by my Patrons. Join my Community and get articles, discounts, and extra audio and video tutorials on writing craft, author business, and AI tools, at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn This episode has been created from previous episodes of The Creative Penn Podcast, curated by Joanna Penn, as well as chapters from How to Write a Novel: From Idea to Book. Links to the individual episodes are included in the transcript below. In this episode: Master the ‘Believe, Care, Invest' trifecta, how to hook readers on the very first page Define the Dramatic Question: Who is your character when the chips are down? Absolute specificity. Why “she's controlling” isn't good enough Understand the Heroine's Journey, strength through connection, not solo action Use ‘Metaphor Families' to anchor dialogue and give every character a distinctive voice Find the Diagnostic Detail, the moments that prove a character is real Writing pain onto the page without writing memoir Write diverse characters as real people, not stereotypes or plot devices Give your protagonist a morally neutral ‘hero' status. Compelling beats likeable. Build vibrant side characters for series longevity and spin-off potential Use voice as a rhythmic tool Link character and plot until they're inseparable Why discovery writers can write out of order and still build deep character Find the sensory details that make characters live and breathe More help with how to write fiction here, or in my book, How to Write a Novel. Writing Characters: 15 Tips for Writing Deep Character in Your Fiction In today's episode, I'm sharing fifteen tips for writing deep characters, synthesised from some of the most insightful interviews on The Creative Penn Podcast over the past few years, combined with what I've learned across more than forty books of my own. I'll be referencing episodes with Matt Bird, Will Storr, Gail Carriger, Barbara Nickless, and Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer. I'll also draw on my own book, How to Write a Novel, which covers these fundamentals in detail. Whether you're writing your first novel or your fiftieth, whether you're a plotter or a discovery writer like me, these tips will help you create characters that readers believe in, care about, and invest in—and keep coming back for more. Let's get into it. 1. Master the ‘Believe, Care, Invest' Trifecta When I spoke with Matt Bird on episode 624, he laid out the three things you need to achieve on the very first page of your book or in the first ten minutes of a film. He calls it “Believe, Care, and Invest.” First, the reader must believe the character is a real person, somehow proving they are not a cardboard imitation of a human being, not just a generic type walking through a generic plot. Second, the reader must care about the character's circumstances. And third, the reader must invest in the character's ability to solve the story's central problem. Matt used The Hunger Games as his primary example, and it's brilliant. On the very first page, we believe Katniss's voice. Suzanne Collins writes in first person with a staccato rhythm—lots of periods, short declarative sentences—that immediately grounds us in a survivalist mentality. We care because Katniss is starving. She's protecting her little sister. And we invest because she is out there bow hunting, which Matt pointed out is one of the most badass things a character can do. She even kills a lynx two pages in and sells the pelt. We invest in her resourcefulness and grit before the plot has even begun. Matt was very clear that this has nothing to do with the character being “likable.” He said his subtitle, Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love, doesn't mean the character has to be a good person. He described “hero” as both gender-neutral and morally neutral. A hero can be totally evil or totally good. What matters is that we believe, care, and invest. He demonstrated this beautifully by breaking down the first ten minutes of WeCrashed, where the characters of Adam and Rebekah Neumann are absolutely not likable, but we are completely hooked. Adam steals his neighbour's Chinese food through a carefully orchestrated con involving an imaginary beer. It's not admirable behaviour, but the tradecraft involved, as Matt put it—using a term from spy movies—makes us invest in him. We see a character trying to solve the big problem of his life, which is that he's poor and wants to be rich, and we want to see if he can pull it off. Actionable step: Go to the first page of your current work in progress. Does it achieve all three? Does the reader believe this is a real person with a distinctive voice? Do they care about the character's circumstances? And do they invest in the character's ability to handle what's coming? If even one of those three is missing, that's your revision priority. 2. Define the Dramatic Question: Who Are They Really? Will Storr, author of The Science of Storytelling, came on episode 490 and gave one of the most powerful frameworks I've ever heard for character-driven fiction. He explained that the human brain evolved language primarily to swap social information—in other words, to gossip. We are wired to monitor other people, to ask the question: who is this person when the chips are down? That's what Will calls the Dramatic Question, and it's what he believes lies at the heart of all compelling storytelling. It's not a question about plot. It's a question about the character's soul. And every scene in your novel should force the character to answer it. His example of Lawrence of Arabia is unforgettable. The Dramatic Question for the entire film is: who are you, Lawrence? Are you ordinary or are you extraordinary? At the beginning, Lawrence is a cocky, rebellious young soldier who believes his rebelliousness makes him superior. Every iconic scene in that three-hour film tests that belief. Sometimes Lawrence acts as though he truly is extraordinary—leading the Arabs into battle, being hailed as a god—and sometimes the world strips him bare and he sees himself as ordinary. Because it's a tragedy, he never overcomes his flaw. He doubles down on his belief that he's extraordinary until he becomes monstrous, culminating in that iconic scene where he lifts a bloody dagger and sees his own reflection with horror. Will also used Jaws to demonstrate how this works in a pure action thriller. Brody's dramatic question is simple: are you going to be old Brody who is terrified of the water, or new Brody who can overcome that fear? Every scene where the shark appears is really asking that question. And the last moment of the film isn't the shark blowing up. It's Brody swimming back through the water, saying he used to be scared of the water and he can't imagine why. Actionable step: Write down the Dramatic Question for your protagonist in a single sentence. Is it “Are you ordinary or extraordinary?” or “Are you brave enough to love again?” or “Will you sacrifice your principles for survival?” If you can't answer this with specificity, your character might still be a sketch rather than a person. 3. Get rid of Vague Flaws, and use Absolute Specificity This was one of Will Storr's most important points. He said that vague thinking about characters is really the enemy. When he teaches workshops and asks writers to describe their character's flaw, most of them say something like “they're very controlling.” And Will's response is: that's not good enough. Everyone is controlling. How are they controlling? What's the specific mechanism? He gave the example of a profile he read of Theresa May during the UK's Brexit chaos. Someone who knew her said that Theresa May's problem was that she always thinks she's the only adult in every room she goes into. Will said that stopped him in his tracks because it's so precise. If you define a character with that level of specificity, you can take them and put them in any genre, any situation—a spaceship, a Victorian drawing room, a school playground—and you will know exactly how they're going to behave. The same applies to Arthur Miller's Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, as Will described it: a man who believes absolutely in capitalistic success and the idea that when you die, you're going to be weighed on a scale, just as God weighs you for sin, but now you're weighed for success. That's not a vague flaw. That's a worldview you can drop into any story and watch it combust. Will made another counterintuitive point that I found really valuable: writers often think that piling on multiple traits will create a complex character, but the opposite is true. Starting with one highly specific flaw and running it through the demands of a relentless plot is what generates complexity. You end up with a far more nuanced, original character than if you'd started with a laundry list of vague attributes. Actionable step: Take your protagonist's flaw and pressure-test it. Is it specific enough that you could place this character in any situation and predict their behaviour? If you're stuck at “she's stubborn” or “he's insecure,” keep pushing. What kind of stubborn? What kind of insecure? Find the diagnostic sentence—the Theresa May level of precision. 4. Understand the Heroine's Journey: Strength Through Connection Gail Carriger came on episode 550 to discuss her nonfiction book, The Heroine's Journey, and it completely reframed how I think about some of my own fiction. Gail explained that the core difference between the Hero's Journey and the Heroine's Journey comes down to how strength and victory are defined. The Hero's Journey is about strength through solo action. The hero must be continually isolated to get stronger. He goes out of civilisation, faces strife alone, and achieves victory through physical prowess and self-actualisation. The Heroine's Journey is the opposite. The heroine achieves her goals by activating a network. She's a delegator, a general. She identifies where she can't do something alone, finds the people who can help, and portions out the work for mutual gain. Gail put it simply: the heroine is very good at asking for help, which our culture tends to devalue but which is actually a powerful form of strength. Crucially, Gail stressed that gender is irrelevant to which journey you're writing. Her go-to examples are striking: the recent Wonder Woman film is practically a beat-for-beat hero's journey—Gilgamesh on screen, as Gail described it. Meanwhile, Harry Potter, both the first book and the series as a whole, is a classic heroine's journey. Harry's power comes from his network—Dumbledore's Army, the Order of the Phoenix, his friendships with Ron and Hermione. He doesn't defeat Voldemort alone. He defeats Voldemort because of love and connection. This distinction has real practical consequences for writers. If you're writing a hero's journey and you hit writer's block, Gail said, the solution is usually to isolate your hero further and pile on more strife. But if you're writing a heroine's journey, the solution is probably to throw a new character into the scene—someone who has advice to offer or a skill the heroine lacks. The actual solutions to writer's block are different depending on which narrative you're writing. As I reflected on my own work, I realised that my ARKANE thriller protagonist, Morgan Sierra, follows a hero's journey—she's a solo operative, a lone wolf like Jack Reacher or James Bond. But my Mapwalker fantasy series follows a heroine's journey, with Sienna and her group of friends working together. I hadn't consciously chosen those paths; the stories led me there. But understanding the framework helps me write more intentionally now. Actionable step: Identify which journey your protagonist is on. Does your character gain strength by being alone (hero) or by building connections (heroine)? This will inform every plot decision you make, from how they face obstacles to how your story ends. 5. Use ‘Metaphor Families' to Anchor Dialogue and Voice One of the most practical techniques Matt Bird shared on episode 624 is the idea of assigning each character a “metaphor family”—a specific well of language that they draw from. This gives each character a distinctive voice that goes beyond accent or dialect. Matt explained how in The Wire, one of the most beloved TV shows of all time, every character has a different metaphor family. What struck him was that Omar, this iconic character, never utters a single curse word in the entire series. His metaphor family is pirate. He talks about parlays, uses language that feels like it belongs in Pirates of the Caribbean, and it creates this incredible ironic counterpoint against his urban setting. It tells us immediately that this is a character who sees himself in a tradition of people that doesn't match his immediate surroundings. Matt also referenced the UK version of The Office, where Gareth works at a paper company but aspires to the military. So all of his language is drawn from a military metaphor family. He doesn't talk about filing and photocopying; he talks about tactics and discipline and being on the front line. This tells us that the character has a life and dreams beyond the immediate scene—and it's the gap between aspiration and reality that makes him both funny and believable. He pointed out that a metaphor family sometimes comes from a character's background, but it's often more interesting when it comes from their aspirations. What does your character want to be? What world do they fantasise about inhabiting? That's where their language should come from. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a spiritual hermit, but his metaphor family is military. He uses the language of generals and commanders, and that ironic counterpoint is part of what makes him feel so rich. Actionable step: Assign each of your main characters a metaphor family. It could be based on their job, their background, or—more interestingly—their secret aspirations. Then go through your dialogue and make sure each character is consistently drawing from that well of language. If two characters sound the same when you strip away the dialogue tags, this is the fix. 6. Find the Diagnostic Detail: The Diagonal Toast Avoid clichéd character tags—the random scar, the eye patch, the mysterious limp—unless they serve a deep narrative purpose. Matt Bird on episode 624 was very funny about this: he pointed out that Nick Fury, Odin, and eventually Thor all have eye patches in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Eye patches are done, he said. You cannot do eye patches anymore. Instead, look for what I'm calling the “diagonal toast” detail, after a scene Matt described from Captain Marvel. In the film, Captain Marvel is trying to determine whether Nick Fury is who he says he is. She asks him to prove he isn't a shapeshifting alien. Fury shares biographical details—his history, his mother—but then she pushes further and says, name one more thing you couldn't possibly have made up about yourself. And Fury says: if toast is cut diagonally, I can't eat it. Matt said that detail is gold for a writer because it feels pulled from a real life. You can pull it from your own life and gift it to your characters, and the reader can tell it's not manufactured. He gave another example from The Sopranos: Tony Soprano's mother won't answer the phone after dark. The show's creator, David Chase, confirmed on the DVD commentary that this came from his own mother, who genuinely would not answer the phone after dark and couldn't explain why. Matt's practical advice was to keep a journal. Write down the strange, specific things that people do or say. Mine your own life for those hyper-specific details. You just need one per book. In my own writing, I've used this approach. In my ARKANE thrillers, my character Morgan Sierra has always been Angelina Jolie in my mind—specifically Jolie in Lara Croft or Mr and Mrs Smith. And Blake Daniel in my crime thriller series was based on Jesse Williams from Grey's Anatomy. I paste pictures of actors into my Scrivener projects. It helps with visuals, but also with the sense of the character, their energy and physicality. But visual details only take you so far. It's the behavioural quirks—the diagonal toast moments—that make a character feel genuinely alive. That said, physical character tags can work brilliantly when they serve the story. As I discuss in How to Write a Novel, Robert Galbraith's Cormoran Strike is an amputee, and his pain and the physical challenges of his prosthesis are a key part of every story—it's not a cosmetic detail, it's woven into the action and the character's psychology. My character Blake Daniel always wears gloves to cover the scars on his hands, which provides an angle into his wounded past as well as a visual cue for the reader. And of course, Harry Potter's lightning-shaped scar isn't just a mark—it's a direct connection to his nemesis and the mythology of the entire series. The rule of thumb is: if the tag tells us something about the character's interior life or connects to the plot, it's earning its place. If it's just there to make the character visually distinctive, it's probably a crutch. Game of Thrones takes character tags further with the family houses, each with their own mottos and sigils. The Starks say “Winter is coming” and their sigil is a dire wolf. Those aren't just labels—they're worldview made visible. Actionable step: Start a “diagonal toast” notebook. Every time you notice something strange and specific about someone's behaviour—something that feels too real to be made up—write it down. Then gift it to a character who needs more texture. 7. Displace Your Own Trauma into the Work Barbara Nickless shared something deeply personal on episode 732 that fundamentally changed how I think about putting pain onto the page. While starting At First Light, the first book in her Dr. Evan Wilding series, she lost her son to epilepsy—something called SUDEP, Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy. One day he was there, and the next day he was gone. Barbara said that writing helped her cope with the trauma, that doing a deep dive into Old English literature and the Viking Age for the book's research became a lifeline. But here's what's important: she didn't give Dr. Evan Wilding her exact trauma. Evan Wilding is four feet five inches, and Barbara described how he has to walk through a world that won't adjust to him. That's its own form of learning to cope when circumstances are beyond your control. She displaced her genuine grief into the character's different but parallel struggle. When I asked her about the difference between writing for therapy and writing for an audience, she drew on her experience teaching creative writing to veterans through a collaboration between the US Department of Defense and the National Endowment for the Arts. She said she's found that she can pour her heartache into her characters and process it through them, even when writing professionally, and that the genuine emotion is what touches readers. We've all been through our own losses and griefs, so seeing how a character copes can be deeply meaningful. I've always found that putting my own pain onto the page is the most direct way to connect with a reader's soul. My character Morgan Sierra's musings on religion and the supernatural are often my own. Her restlessness, her fascination with the darker edges of faith—those come from me. But her Krav Maga fighting skills and her ability to kill the bad guys are definitely her own. That gap between what's mine and what's hers is where the fiction lives. Barbara also said something on that episode that I wrote down and stuck on my wall. She said the act of producing itself is a balm to the soul. I've been thinking about that ever since. On my own wall, I have “Measure your life by what you create.” Different words, same truth. Actionable step: If you're carrying something heavy—grief, anger, fear, regret—consider how you might displace it into a character's different but emotionally parallel struggle. Don't copy your exact situation; transform it. The emotion will be genuine, and the reader will feel it. 8. Write Diverse Characters as Real People When I spoke with Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer on episode 673—Sarah is Choctaw and a historical fiction author honoured by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian—she offered a perspective that every fiction writer needs to hear. The key message was to move away from stereotypes. Don't write your American Indian character as the “Wise Guide” who exists solely to dispense mystic wisdom to the white protagonist. Don't limit diverse characters to historical settings, as though they only exist in the past. Place them in normal, contemporary roles. Your spaceship captain, your forensic scientist, your small-town baker—any of them can be American Indian, or Nigerian, or Japanese, and their heritage should be a lived-in part of their identity, not the sole reason they exist in the story. I write international thrillers and dark fantasy, and my fiction is populated with characters from all over the world. I have a multi-cultural family and I've lived in many places and travelled widely, so I've met, worked with, and had relationships with people from different cultures. I find story ideas through travel, and if I set my books in a certain place, then the story is naturally populated with the people who live there. As I discuss in my book, How to Write a Novel, the world is a diverse place, so your fiction needs to be populated with all kinds of people. If I only populated my fiction with characters like me, they would be boring novels. There are many dimensions of difference—race, nationality, sex, age, body type, ability, religion, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, class, culture, education level—and even then, don't assume that similar types of people think the same way. Some authors worry they will make mistakes. We live in a time of outrage, and some authors have been criticised for writing outside their own experience. So is it too dangerous to try? Of course not. The media amplifies outliers, and most authors include diverse characters in every book without causing offence because they work hard to get it right. It's about awareness, research, and intent. Actionable step: Audit the cast of your current work in progress. Have you written a mono-cultural perspective for all of them? If so, consider who could bring a different background, perspective, or set of cultural specifics to the story. Not as a token addition, but as a real person with a real life. 9. Respect Tribal and Cultural Specificity Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer on episode 673 was emphatic about one thing: never treat diverse groups as monolithic. If you're writing a Native American character, you must research the specific nation. Choctaw is not Navajo, just as British is not French. Sarah described the distinct cultural markers of the Choctaw people—the diamond pattern you'll see on traditional shirts and dresses, which represents the diamondback rattlesnake. They have distinct dances and songs. She said that if she saw someone in traditional dress at a distance, she would know whether they were Choctaw based on what they were wearing. She encouraged writers who want to write specifically about a nation to get to know those people. Go to events, go to a powwow, learn about the individual culture. She noted that a big misconception is that American Indians exist only in the past—she stressed that they are still here, still living their cultures, and fiction should reflect that present reality. I took a similar approach when writing Destroyer of Worlds, which is set mostly in India. I read books about Hindu myth, watched documentaries about the sadhus, and had one of my Indian readers from Mumbai check my cultural references. For Risen Gods, set in New Zealand with a young Maori protagonist, I studied books about Maori mythology and fiction by Maori authors, and had a male Maori reader check for cultural issues. Research is simply an act of empathy. The practical takeaway is this: if you're going to include a character from a specific cultural background, do the work. Use specific cultural details rather than generic signifiers. Sarah talked about how even she fell into stereotypes when she was first writing, until her mother pointed them out. If someone from within a culture can fall into those traps, the rest of us certainly can. Do the research, try your best, ask for help, and apologise if you need to. Actionable step: If you're writing a character from a specific culture, identify three to five sensory or behavioural details that are particular to that culture—not the generic version, but the real, researched, lived-in version. Consider hiring a sensitivity reader from that community to check your work. 10. Give Your Protagonist a Morally Neutral ‘Hero' Status Matt Bird was clear about this on episode 624: the word “hero” simply means the protagonist, the person we follow through the story. It's a functional role, not a moral label. We don't have to like them. We don't even have to root for their goals in a moral sense. We just have to find them compelling enough to invest our attention in their problem-solving. Think of Succession, where every member of the Roy family is varying degrees of awful, and yet the show was utterly compelling. Or WeCrashed, where Adam Neumann is a narcissistic con artist, but we can't look away because he's trying to solve the enormous problem of building an empire from nothing, and the tradecraft he employs is fascinating. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, readers must want to spend time with your characters. They don't have to be lovable or even likable—that will depend on your genre and story choices—but they have to be captivating enough that we want to spend time with them. A character who is trying to solve a massive problem will naturally draw investment from the audience, even if we wouldn't want to have tea with them. Will Storr extended this idea by pointing out that the audience will actually root for a character to solve their problem even if the audience doesn't actually want the character's goal to be achieved in the real world. We don't really want more billionaires, but we invested in Adam Neumann's rise because that was the problem the story posed, and our brains are wired to invest in problem-solving. This connects to something deeper: what does your character want, and why? As I explore in How to Write a Novel, desire operates on multiple levels. Take a character like Phil, who joins the military during wartime. On the surface, she wants to serve her country. But she also wants to escape her dead-end town and learn new skills. Deeper still, her father and grandfather served, and by joining up, she hopes to finally earn their respect. And perhaps deepest of all, her father died on a mission under mysterious circumstances, and she wants to find out what happened from the inside. That layering of motivation is what turns a flat character into a three-dimensional one. The audience doesn't need to be told all of this explicitly. It can emerge through action, dialogue, and the choices the character makes under pressure. But you, the writer, need to know it. You need to know what your character really wants deep down, because that desire—more than any external plot device—is what drives the story forward. And your antagonist needs the same depth. They also want something, often diametrically opposed to your protagonist, and they need a reason that makes sense to them. In my ARKANE thriller Tree of Life, my antagonist is the heiress of a Brazilian mining empire who wants to restore the Earth to its original state to atone for the destruction caused by her father's company. She's part of a radical ecological group who believe the only way to restore Nature is to end all human life. It's extreme, but in an era of climate change, it's a motivation readers can understand—even if they disagree with the solution. Actionable step: If you're struggling to make a morally grey character work, make sure their problem is big enough and their methods are specific and interesting enough that we invest in the how, even if we're ambivalent about the what. 11. Build Vibrant Side Characters Gail Carriger made a point on episode 550 that was equal parts craft advice and business strategy. In a Heroine's Journey model, side characters aren't just fodder to be killed off to motivate the hero. They form a network. And because you don't have to kill them—unlike in a hero's journey, where allies are often betrayed or removed so the hero can be further isolated—you can pick up those side characters and give them their own books. Gail said this creates a really voracious reader base. You write one series with vivid side characters, and then readers fall in love with those side characters and want their stories. So you write spin-offs. The romance genre does this brilliantly—think of the Bridgerton books, where each sibling gets their own novel. The side character in one book becomes the protagonist in the next. Barbara Nickless experienced this firsthand with her Dr. Evan Wilding series. She has River Wilding, Evan's adventurous brother, and Diana, the axe-throwing research assistant, and her editor has already expressed interest in a spin-off series with those characters. Barbara described creating characters she wants to spend time with, or characters who give her nightmares but also intrigue her. That's the dual test: are they interesting enough for you to write, and interesting enough for readers to demand more? As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, characters that span series can deepen the reader's relationship with them as you expand their backstory into new plots. Readers will remember the character more than the plot or the book title, and look forward to the next instalment because they want more time with those people. British crime author Angela Marsons described it as readers feeling like returning to her characters is like putting on a pair of old slippers. Actionable step: Look at your supporting cast. Is there a side character who is vivid enough to carry their own story? If not, what could you add—a specific hobby, a distinct voice, a compelling backstory—that would make readers want more of them? 12. Use Voice as a Rhythmic Tool Voice is one of the most important elements of novel writing, and Matt Bird helped me think about it in a technical, mechanical way that I found really useful. He pointed out that the ratio of periods to commas defines a character's internal reality. A staccato rhythm—lots of periods, short sentences—suggests a character who is certain, grounded, or perhaps survivalist and traumatised. Katniss in The Hunger Games has a period-heavy voice. She's in survival mode. She doesn't have time for complexity or qualification. A flowing, comma-heavy style suggests someone more academic, more nuanced, or possibly more scattered and manipulative. The character who qualifies everything, who adds sub-clauses and digressions, is a different kind of person from the character who speaks in declarations. This is something you can actually measure. Pull up a passage of your character's dialogue or internal monologue and count the periods versus the commas. If the rhythm doesn't match who the character is supposed to be, you've found a mismatch you can fix. Sentence length is the heartbeat of your character's persona. And voice extends beyond rhythm to the words themselves. As I discussed in the metaphor families tip, each character should draw from a distinctive well of language. But voice also encompasses their relationship to silence. Some characters talk around the thing they mean; others say it straight. Some are self-deprecating; others are blunt to the point of rudeness. All of these choices are character choices, not just style choices. I find it useful to read my dialogue aloud—and not just to check for naturalness, but to hear whether each character sounds distinct. If you could swap dialogue lines between two characters and nobody would notice, you have a voice problem. One practical test: cover the dialogue tags and see if you can tell who's speaking from the words alone. Actionable step: Choose a key passage from your protagonist's point of view and read it aloud. Does the rhythm match the character? A soldier under fire should not sound like a philosophy professor at a wine tasting. Adjust the ratio of periods to commas until the voice feels right. 13. Link Character and Plot Until They're Inseparable Will Storr made the case on episode 490 that the number one problem he sees in the writing he encounters—in workshops, in submissions, even in published books—is that the characters and the plots are unconnected. There's a story happening, and there are people in it, but the story isn't a product of who those people are. He said a story should be like life. In our lives, the plots are intimately connected to who we are as characters. The goals we pursue, the obstacles we face, the same problems that keep recurring—these are products of our personalities, our flaws, our specific ways of being in the world. His framework is that your plot should be designed specifically to plot against your character. You've got a character with a particular flaw; the plot exists to test that flaw over and over until the character either transforms or doubles down and explodes. Jaws is the perfect example. Brody is afraid of water. A shark shows up in the coastal town he's responsible for protecting. The entire plot is engineered to force him to confront the one thing he cannot face. Will pointed out that the whole plot of Jaws is structured around Brody's flaw. It begins with the shark arriving, the midpoint is when Brody finally gets the courage to go into the water, and the very final scene isn't the shark blowing up—it's Brody swimming back through the water. Even a film that's ninety-eight percent action is, at its core, structured around a character with a character flaw. This is the standard I aspire to in my own work, even in my action-heavy thrillers. The external plot should be a mirror of the internal struggle. When those two are aligned, the story becomes irresistible. Will also made an important point about series fiction, which is where most commercial authors live. I asked him how this works when your character can't be transformed at the end of every book because there has to be a next book. His answer was elegant: you don't cure them. Episodic TV characters like Fleabag or David Brent or Basil Fawlty never truly change—and the fact that they don't change is actually the source of the comedy. But every episode throws a new story event at them that tests and exposes their flaw. You just keep throwing story events at them again and again. That's a soap opera, a sitcom, and a book series. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, character flaws are aspects of personality that affect the person so much that facing and overcoming them becomes central to the plot. In Jaws, the protagonist Brody is afraid of the water, but he has to overcome that flaw to destroy the killer shark and save the town. But remember, your characters should feel like real people, so never define them purely by their flaws. The character addicted to painkillers might also be a brilliant and successful female lawyer who gets up at four in the morning to work out at the gym, likes eighties music, and volunteers at the local dog shelter at weekends. Character wounds are different from flaws. They're formed from life experience and are part of your character's backstory—traumatic events that happened before the events of your novel but shape the character's reactions in the present. In my ARKANE thrillers, Morgan Sierra's husband Elian died in her arms during a military operation. This happened before the series begins, but her memories of it recur when she faces a firefight, and she struggles to find happiness again for fear of losing someone she loves once more. And then there's the perennial advice: show, don't tell. Most writers have heard this so many times that it's easy to nod and then promptly write scenes that tell rather than show. Basically, you need to reveal your character through action and dialogue, rather than explanation. In my thriller Day of the Vikings, Morgan Sierra fights a Neo-Viking in the halls of the British Museum and brings him down with Krav Maga. That fight scene isn't just about showing action. It opens up questions about her backstory, demonstrates character, and moves the plot forward. Telling would be something like: “Morgan was an expert in Krav Maga.” Showing is the reader discovering it through the scene itself. Actionable step: Look at the main plot events of your novel. For each major turning point, ask: does this scene specifically test my protagonist's flaw? If not, can you redesign the scene so that it does? The tighter the connection between character and plot, the more powerful the story. 14. The ‘Maestra' Approach: Write Out of Order If you're a discovery writer like me, you may feel like the deep character work I've been describing sounds more suited to plotters. But Barbara Nickless gave me a beautiful metaphor on episode 732 that reframes it entirely. Barbara described her evolving writing process as being like a maestra standing in front of an orchestra. Sometimes you bring in the horns—a certain theme—and sometimes you bring in the strings—a certain character—and sometimes you turn to the soloist. It's a more organic and jumping-around process than linear writing, and Barbara said she's only recently given herself permission to work this way. When I told her that I use Scrivener to write in scenes out of order and then drag and drop them into a structure later, she was genuinely intrigued. And this is how I've always worked. I'll see the story in my mind like a movie trailer—flashes of the big emotional scenes, the pivotal confrontations, the moments of revelation—and I write those first. I don't know how they hang together until quite late in the process. Then I'll move scenes around, print the whole thing out, and figure out the connective tissue. The point is that discovery writers can absolutely build deep characters. Sometimes writing the big emotional scenes first is how you discover who the character is before you fill in the rest. You don't need a twenty-page character worksheet or a 200-page outline like Jeffery Deaver. You need to be willing to follow the character into the unknown and trust that the structure will emerge. As Barbara said, she writes to know what she's thinking. That's the discovery writer's credo. And I would add: I write to know who my characters are. Actionable step: If you're stuck on your current chapter, skip it. Write the scene that's burning in your imagination, even if it's from the middle or the end. That scene might be the key to unlocking who your character really is. 15. Use Research to Help with Empathy Research shouldn't just be about factual accuracy—it's a tool for finding the sensory details that create empathy. Barbara Nickless described research as almost an excuse to explore things that fascinate her, and I feel exactly the same way. I would go so far as to say that writing is an excuse for me to explore the things that interest me. Barbara and I both travel for our stories. For her Dr. Evan Wilding books, she did deep research into Old English literature and the Viking Age. For my thriller End of Days, I transcribed hours of video from Appalachian snake-handling churches on YouTube to understand the worldview of the worshippers, because my antagonist was brought up in that tradition. I couldn't just make that up. I had to hear their language, feel their conviction, understand why they would hold venomous serpents as an act of faith. Barbara also mentioned getting to Israel and the West Bank for research, and I've been to both places too. Finding that one specific sensory detail—the smell of a particular location, the specific way an expert handles a tool, the sound of a particular kind of music—makes the character's life feel lived-in. It's the difference between a character who is described as living in a place and a character who inhabits it. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, don't write what you know. Write what you want to learn about. I love research. It's part of why I'm an author in the first place. I take any excuse to dive into a world different from my own. Research using books, films, podcasts, and travel, and focus particularly on sources produced by people from the worldview you want to understand. Actionable step: For your next piece of character research, go beyond reading. Watch a documentary, visit a location, talk to someone who lives the experience. Find one sensory detail—a smell, a sound, a texture—that you couldn't have invented. That detail will make your character feel real. Bonus: Measure Your Life by What You Create In an age of AI and a tsunami of content, your ultimate brand protection is the quality of your human creation. Barbara Nickless said that the act of producing itself is a balm to the soul, and I believe that with every fibre of my being. Don't be afraid to take that step back, like I did with my deadlifting. Take the time to master these deeper craft skills. It might feel like you're slowing down or going backwards by not chasing the latest marketing trend, but it's the only way to step forward into a sustainable, high-quality career. Your characters are your signature. No AI can replicate the specificity of your lived experience, the emotional truth of your displaced trauma, or the sensory details you've gathered from a life of curiosity and travel. Those are yours. Pour them into your characters, and they will resonate for years to come. Actionable Takeaway: Identify the Dramatic Question for your current protagonist. Can you state it in a single sentence with the kind of specificity Will Storr described? Is it as clear as “Are you ordinary or extraordinary?” or “Are you the only adult in the room?” If you can't answer it with that kind of precision, your character might still be a sketch. Give them a diagonal toast moment today. Find the one hyper-specific detail that proves they are not an imitation of life. And then ask yourself: does your plot test your character's flaw in every major scene? If you can align those two things—a precisely defined character and a plot that exists to test them—you will have a story that readers cannot put down. References and Deep Dives The episodes I've referenced today are all available with full transcripts at TheCreativePenn.com: Episode 732 — Facing Fears, and Writing Unique Characters with Barbara Nickless Episode 673 — Writing Choctaw Characters and Diversity in Fiction with Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer Episode 624 — Writing Characters with Matt Bird Episode 550 — The Heroine's Journey with Gail Carriger Episode 490 — How Character Flaws Shape Story with Will Storr Books mentioned: The Secrets of Character: Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love by Matt Bird The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger How to Write a Novel: From Idea to Book by Joanna Penn You can find all my books for authors at CreativePennBooks.com and my fiction and memoir at JFPennBooks.com Happy writing! How was this episode created? This episode was initiated created by NotebookLM based on YouTube videos of the episodes linked above from YouTube/TheCreativePenn, plus my text chapters on character from How to Write a Novel. NotebookLM created a blog post from the material and then I expanded it and fact checked it with Claude.ai 4.6 Opus, and then I used my voice clone at ElevenLabs to narrate it. The post Writing Characters: 15 Actionable Tips For Writing Deep Character first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 12, 2026 is: gambit • GAM-bit • noun A gambit is something done or said in order to gain an advantage or to produce a desired effect. // The workers' opening gambit in the negotiations was to demand a wage hike. See the entry > Examples: “Now the book publishing industry has sent a message to all A.I. companies: Our intellectual property isn't yours for the taking, and you cannot act with impunity. This settlement is an opening gambit in a critical battle that will be waged for years to come.” — Andrea Bartz, The New York Times, 1 Oct. 2025 Did you know? Don't let the similarities of sound and general flavor between gambit and gamble trip you up; the two words are unrelated. Gambit first appeared in English in a 1656 chess handbook that was said to feature almost a hundred illustrated gambetts. Gambett traces back first to the Spanish word gambito, and before that to the Italian gambetto, from gamba meaning “leg.” Gambetto referred to the act of tripping someone, as in wrestling, in order to gain an advantage. In chess, gambit (or gambett, as it was once spelled) originally referred to a chess opening whereby the bishop's pawn is intentionally sacrificed—or tripped—to gain an advantage in position. Gambit is now applied to many other chess openings, but after being pinned down for years, it also finally broke free of chess's hold and is used generally to refer to any “move,” whether literal or rhetorical, done to get a leg up, so to speak. While such moves can be risky, gambit is not synonymous with gamble, which likely comes from Old English gamen, meaning “amusement, jest, pastime”—source too of game.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 11, 2026 is: besotted • bih-SAH-tud • adjective Someone described as besotted is so in love that they are unable to think clearly; they are utterly infatuated. Besotted can also be used as a synonym of drunk. // The opening scene of the movie follows a besotted couple at a party, the camera's focus emphasizing their ignorance of all that's around them. See the entry > Examples: “Kathrin [tour guide] is endearingly besotted with her adopted country and spoke about it with the reverence of a convert. Some more things I heard from her that contribute to people in Finland being happy included: sauna culture discouraging fatphobia; emphasis on design—that means even very basic, cheap things are beautiful and robust; and, of course, nature.” — Imogen West-Knights, Slate, 27 Aug. 2025 Did you know? Stumble on the word sot and you will likely find it attached to a person who tends to over-imbibe. The word has referred to a habitual drunkard since the late 16th century, and before that—from the days of Old English—it referred to a fool generally. The now-archaic verb sot followed a similar trajectory, its original meaning of “to cause to appear foolish” being joined later by its “to drink alcohol excessively” meaning. The earliest known recorded use of the related adjective besotted (in the late 16th century, from the the verb besot), however, described a state of figurative intoxication: one besotted was stupefied by love rather than liquor. The still-current sense of besotted meaning “drunk” didn't show up until the early 19th century. In fact, evidence of the “infatuated” sense of besotted also predates the tipple-related senses of the noun sot, verb sot, and verb besot, suggesting perhaps that love may be the strongest intoxicant of all.

Today's poem is a selection from the Old English, Beowulf, translated by R. M. Liuzza. In these lines, Beowulf prepares for a harrowing showdown with Grendel's mother, and the cold, clear beauty of the lines almost makes you wish you were there. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

We look at the works of perhaps the most accomplished author in the Old English canon: Ælfric of Eynsham. Credits – Music: 'Wælheall' by Hrōðmund Wōdening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQfdqIyqJ4g&list=LL&index=5&ab_channel=Hr%C5%8D%C3%B0mundW%C5%8Ddening Social Media - Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/anglosaxonengland Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Anglo-Saxon-England-Podcast-110529958048053 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anglosaxonenglandpodcast/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 5, 2026 is: deem • DEEM • verb Deem is a somewhat formal word used when someone comes to think something or to have something as an opinion after some consideration. // The covered bridge was closed to automobile traffic for the winter because town officials deemed it a hazard to motorists. See the entry > Examples: “bbno$ is an artist who has certainly taken some flak over the years for his style. Some find it to be a gimmick, while others deem it corny. Despite this, he does have a pretty sizable fanbase.” — Alexander Cole, HotNewHipHop.com, 10 Jan. 2026 Did you know? If you feel a sense of doom when asked to define deem, we're here with some details for your dome (sense 7). While today deem is used generally as a synonym of consider (as in “a movie deemed appropriate for all ages”), its origins are more formal, coming specifically from the realm of law. The oldest meaning of deem, which comes from the Old English verb dēman (relative of dōm, meaning “doom”) is “to sit in judgment upon,” as employed by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queen: “... at th'one side six Judges were dispos'd, / To view and deem the deeds of arms that day.” This sense was obsolete by the early 17th century, and other senses including “to expect or hope” have come and gone, but deem's use overall has never dimmed. In fact, today's most common meaning of “to come to think or judge something; to consider” has also been in use since Old English and is still deemed quite common.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 27, 2026 is: nettle • NET-ul • verb To nettle someone is to make them angry or annoyed. // Though he tried to maintain a friendly tone, the town official was clearly nettled by the reporter's suggestion that the town was at fault. See the entry > Examples: "I can't help but be reminded of an idiom that irked me no end during times of familial stress ... : 'Use it or lose it.' The message being that if a skill or resource is not regularly utilised, over time, we will lose it. As nettled as I was by it, I now feel obliged to acknowledge the obvious truth behind the catchphrase." — Gwen Loughman, The Journal (Ireland), 21 Aug. 2025 Did you know? If you've ever brushed against nettles, you know those plants have sharp bristles that can leave you smarting and itching. The painful and irritating rash that nettles cause can last for days, but at least it is a rash with a linguistic silver lining. The discomfort caused by nettles can serve to remind one that the verb nettle is a synonym of irritate. Nettle originated as a plant name that we can trace to the Old English word netel. Eventually, people likened the persistent stinging itch caused by the plant to the nagging aggravation of being annoyed, and nettle joined the likes of vex, peeve, and irk in describing such little miseries.

Unlocked bonus episode: A very brief intro to the history and focus of Old English prose. Credits –  Music: 'Wælheall' by Hrōðmund Wōdening ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQfdqIyqJ4g&list=LL&index=5&ab_channel=Hr%C5%8D%C3%B0mundW%C5%8Ddening⁠ Social Media -  Patreon: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/anglosaxonengland⁠ Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/Anglo-Saxon-England-Podcast-110529958048053⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/anglosaxonenglandpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever wonder what medieval England looked and sounded like? In Old English, the word hord meant "treasure" and your wordhord was the treasure of words locked up inside you. A delightful new book uses the language of that period to create a vivid look at everyday life. Plus, a shotgun house is long and narrow with no hallway -- just one room leading into the next. It's an architectural style with a long history stretching from Africa to Haiti and into the American South. And: say you accidentally cut someone off in traffic, and you know it's your fault. What's a quick, clear way to communicate that you're sorry? NO texting allowed! All that, and feaking, feather merchant, gradoo, spondulicks, echar un zorrito, tocayo and cueto, a take-off quiz, and an onomatopoeic Old English word for "sneeze." Hear hundreds of free episodes and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org. Be a part of the show: call or text 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; elsewhere in the world, call or text +1 619 800 4443. Send voice notes or messages via WhatsApp 16198004443. Email words@waywordradio.org. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1146. This week, we look at the history of Braille, from the tragic accident that inspired Louis Braille's six-dot system to the "War of the Dots"—a decades-long conflict over competing reading standards in the U.S. Then, we look at the origin of the phrase "pitch black," revealing how the intensifier "pitch" refers to an ancient, dark wood tar and how the word traces its roots back to Old English.The braille segment was written by Karen Lunde, a longtime writer and editor turned web designer and marketing mentor. Solo service business owners come to her for websites where beautiful design meets authentic words that actually build connections. Find her at chanterellemarketingstudio.com.The pitch black segment was run by Samantha Enslen who runs Dragonfly Editorial. You can find her online at dragonflyeditorial.com.Links to Get One Month Free of the Grammar Girl Patreon (different links for different levels)Order of the Snail ($1/month level): https://www.patreon.com/grammargirl/redeem/687E4Order of the Aardvark ($5/month level): https://www.patreon.com/grammargirl/redeem/07205Keeper of the Commas ($10/month level): https://www.patreon.com/grammargirl/redeem/50A0BGuardian of the Grammary ($25/month level): https://www.patreon.com/grammargirl/redeem/949F7

William Sandys was an antiquarian who published a collection of Christmas carols in the 19th century that turned out to be really influential. Research: Archambo, Shelley Batt. “The Development of the English Carol Through the Fifteenth Century.” The Choral Journal, OCTOBER 1986, Vol. 27, No. 3. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23547224REFERENCES Brain, Jessica. “History of Christmas Carols.” Historic UK. 12/13/2024. https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/History-Christmas-Carols/ “Carol, N.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, June 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1684298837. Carter, Michael. “The origins of Christmas carols.” English Heritage. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/origins-of-christmas-carols/ Cartwright, Mark. "The History of Christmas Carols." World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 05 Dec 2023, https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2339/the-history-of-christmas-carols/. Web. 03 Dec 2025. Davey, Henry, and Elizabeth Baigent. "Sandys, William (1792–1874), writer on music and antiquary." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. September 23, 2004. Oxford University Press. Date of access 3 Dec. 2025, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-24654 Ditchfield, Peter Hampson. “Old English customs extant at the present time; an account of local observances.” London, G. Redway. 1896. https://archive.org/details/studentshistoryo00gardrich Dreamer, Percy R. et al. “The Oxford Book Of Carols.” Oxford University Press. 1928. English Heritage. “A Brief History of Christmas Carols.” https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/members-area/members-magazine/podcast-extras/history-of-carols/ Sandys, William. “Christmas carols, ancient and modern; including the most popular in the west of England, and the airs to which they are sung. Also specimens of French provincial carols. With an introduction and notes.” London, R. Beckley. 1833. https://archive.org/details/christmascarolsa00sandrich/mode/1up Sandys, William. “Christmastide: Its History, Festivities and Carols.” London: John Russell Smith. 1860. https://archive.org/details/christmastideits00sandrich/ The Law Bod Blog. “Heading towards Christmas.” 12/2/2013. https://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/lawbod/2013/12/02/heading-towards-christmas/ Huxtable, Sally-Anne. “Wassailing: ritual and revelry.” National Trust. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/art-collections/wassailing-ritual-and-revelry See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's the most wonderful time of the year: that's right, the Lent of St. Martin! Okay okay, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, but the lead-up--known as the season of Advent--is an unbelievably rich tradition filled with deep meaning. On this Young Heretics special, I explain the big ideas of Advent through the surprising history of everyone's favorite song of the season, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." And God bless us, every one!  Read my co-authored essay with Andrew Klavan (no relation) on AI: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/12/07/ai-idols-consciousness-religion-llms/ Order Light of the Mind, Light of the World (and rate it five stars): https://a.co/d/2QccOfM Subscribe to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com