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Podcast episodes

Check latest episodes from A Word in Your Ear podcast

A Word in Your Ear: The Building Blocks of Words

2026/10/19

Did you get a strong foundation in "morphology" when you were at school? Has that helped you understand other words in your adult years?

A Word in Your Ear: How Irregular is English Spelling?

2026/10/12

There is debate over whether we need phonetic spelling, but that could be a catastrophe. Professor Roly Sussex explains why.

A Word in Your Ear: What Makes a Great Dad Joke?

2026/10/05

The games we play with language - and we do love language games - and not just the scrabble, wordle, crossword kind.

A Word In Your Ear: Spoonerisms, Rhyming Slang and Tongue Twisters

2026/09/28

The Lord of Language, Professor Roly Sussex, and 612 presenter Sally Rope, rabbit and pork about this colourful play of language.

A Word In Your Ear: Rickroll and Neckbeard, The New Dictionary Additions

2026/09/21

New words in our dictionaries a-plenty - let's find out how many you're familiar with and how many draw a blank.

A Word In Your Ear: What Has Shaped Our Fashion Vocabulary?

2026/09/14

Historically, what are the main influences on English fashion vocabulary? And how does clothing linguistics differ abroad? Kelly Higgins-Devine reveals all with the Lord of Language Professor Roly Sussex, and Senior Lecturer in Fashion at QUT, Dr Tim Lindgren.

A Word In Your Ear: Australians Love Language Play

2026/09/07

Australians love a good simile, but how did we invent them?

A Word In Your Ear: Why The French Language Dominates Kitchens

2026/08/24

Why did French become the universal language of high gastronomy across international royal courts and professional kitchens?

A Word In Your Ear: What Does A Voice Coach Do?

2026/08/17

AWIYE: The work of voice and dialect coaches

A Word In Your Ear: How New Words Are Created

2026/08/03

Neologisms, and how they are formed.

A Word In Your Ear: Email and Envelope Address Etiquette

2026/07/27

The art of addressing someone formally over email.

A Word In Your Ear: Teaching Kids To Spell

2026/07/20

Language Professor Roly Sussex and Education Specialist Sue-Belinda Meehan discuss the language of how we teach primary school children, language.

A Word In Your Ear: The Language of the Sea

2026/07/13

Pipe the hands and stand by, because Admiral of the English Language, Professor Roly Sussex is making way through the language of the Royal Australian Navy and translating the salty expressions that have sailed from life at sea into everyday Australian English.

A Word In Your Ear: "Dishlickers" Joins the Oxford Dictionary!

2026/07/06

Language Professor Roly Sussex discusses the seventeen Australian words the Oxford English Dictionary has added in 2026, including "yeah nah", "checkout chick" and "dishlickers".

A Word In Your Ear: The Language of Gardening

2026/06/29

Language Professor Roly Sussex and 612-ABC Brisbane gardening expert Clare Bickle discuss the love language that is plants and gardening.