A Word in Your Ear

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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