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Meet the "Word Nerds" > Email your comments to the producers Two Ball State professors bring meaning to words through weekly radio program Word Nerds is the 5-minute radio program created by Bob Nowatzki and written and performed by Ball State University English professors Bob Nowatzki and Pat Collier. The show airs on Indiana Public Radio, every Saturday at 11 a.m., immediately after Car Talk. In a humorous, dialogue format, the professors introduce interesting and unusual words and discuss their derivations and histories. Designed to be entertaining and educational, Word Nerds calls attention to interesting and unknown histories of common words and educates listeners about the often unusual processes by which words enter the English language and change in meaning or connotation over time. While the show goes into significant detail about the origins of specific words, you don’t need a specialized knowledge of language or linguistics to enjoy the lively, back-and-forth banter between the two performers. In the five minutes of each program, you will typically learn several new words as well as the derivations of several familiar words. The show repeatedly demonstrates the way in which words are built of distinct units of meaning—roots, prefixes, suffixes, etc.—and how these units work together to suggest a specific, overall meaning. It also demonstrates the way meaning, while “contained” in these units, is also socially constituted, maintained, and modified as words and their contexts change. Get a functional understanding of etymology, pair it with knowledge of key Latin, Greek and Romance root words, and you have the foundation to both good vocabulary and advanced reading comprehension. The program demonstrates and models a way of thinking about words that contributes to strong vocabulary, reading comprehension, and structural understanding of the English language we all speak, write, and think. The brevity of the show and the use of layman’s terms to discuss derivations help ensure that you can easily process the information offered. But – if you want to revisit a show for the bon mot that you missed – Word Nerds is now archived below. A CD compilation of previously-broadcast episodes of Word Nerds is now available for distribution to Indiana schools (language arts departments). Area organizations who want to schedule Nowatzki and Collier for a Word Nerds presentation should contact IPR at 800-646-1812. Partial support for Word Nerds is provided with a grant from The Community Foundation of Muncie & Delaware County. "Word Nerds" archive Episode 01 – audio   |   Intro/Favorites Episode 02 – audio   |   Short Words Episode 04 – audio   |   Meta Words Episode 05 – audio   |   Hindi Episode 06 – audio   |   Drinks Episode 07 – audio   |   Sinful Itinerary Episode 08 – audio   |   Politics Episode 09 – audio   |   Medical Episode 10 – audio   |   Literacy

 

 

 

 

 

Listen to audio from Brian Beaver's report, "A Soldier's Story"

(1/30/07) - part 1
(1/31/07) - part 2
(2/1/07) - part 3
(2/2/0)7 - part 4