Five Good Questions Podcast

Benjamin Bergen is a professor of Cognitive Science at UC San Diego.  He teaches and does research on language and the brain.  Ben’s the author of two books; Louder than Words, which proposes a new theory of how people understand the meanings of words, and What The F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves.  He earned a PhD in Linguistics from UC Berkeley. http://amzn.to/2fTisa9 1.  Is there truth to the myth that swear words come from a different part of our brains?  What’s aphasia? 2.  How do swear words operate with their own grammar?  It seems like fuck is a Swiss Army Knife of words. 3.  There appears to be a Gresham’s Law to swear words where once a word takes on a taboo meaning, it drives out all of it’s non-profane meanings.  How do swear words evolve? 4.  What’s the story behind Samoan children’s first word? 5.  Is the internet leading to a homogenization of swearing?  It seems like new swear words could bubble up more readily through the use of hashtags, but are we also