Word Matters

An excellent podcast: Word Matters, with Merriam-Webster editors Emily Brewster, Neil Serven, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski. I’ve especially enjoyed the sixth and seventh episodes, one looking at the changing meaning of matriculate, the other busting the myth that Shakespeare invented x number of words.

In college, I never understood matriculate, and it never occurred to me to look it up. Every semester at registration I’d see the question: “Are you matriculated?” Sometimes I’d check Y. Sometimes, N. It didn’t seem to matter. I suspect that the coach who borrowed matriculate for football purposes didn’t understand the word either.