A WORDY CELEBRATION OF ALL THINGS LEXICAL,
LIVE ON ZOOM. RECORDINGS ON PODCAST AND VIDEO.
Live on Zoom
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Episode 92: League of the Lexicon II
Past chats
TWC 87: Martha Barnette of the word-lovers' radio show A Way With Words on her new book, Friends With Words
Joshua Blackburn with badger and a new edition of League of the Lexicon.
We met Joshua Blackburn for a puzzle-based That Word Chat in 2022, the year he released his League of the Lexicon game. Now, he is back with a new edition of the game and a new book based on his lexical explorations, The Language-Lover’s Lexipedia.
We’ll chat with Blackburn and Jess Zafarris, the author of the recent Useless Etymology, who collaborated on the new U.S. edition of the game, at 4:30 p.m. ET (20:30 UTC) on Tuesday, Feb. 10. Sign up below.
Blackburn describes The Language-Lover’s Lexipedia as “a guided tour around the sidelines and leylines of language. … It contains 138 entries, including Scottish words for rain, euphemisms for death, a history of polari and Elizabethan color names.”
Blackburn describes himself as the inventor and
question-writer-in-chief of League of the Lexicon, the most successful word game in Kickstarter history. Before creating word games, Blackburn ran Provokateur, a communications agency for charities.
Zafarris is the author of several books on word origins, including Once Upon a Word and Words from Hell. She is also a video content creator who has built a social media following on TikTok and Instagram, and she co-hosts the podcast Words Unravelled.
Sign up below for the Zoom link to the live show, then join us at 4:30 p.m. ET (21:30 UTC) on Tuesday, Feb. 10.
TWC 90: Peter Sokołowski on the new twelfth edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, the first new edition in 20 years
TWC 89: Stefan Fatsis on his new book, Unabridged, which tells of his time embedded at Merriam-Webster in Springfield, Mass.; audio podcast only
TWC 88: Nick Norlen, founder and editor of Paper Airplane magazine, "the grown-up version of the magazines you loved as a kid"
Jess Zafarris
Our last visit with Blackburn in late 2022.
TWC 91: Words of the Year 2025, our annual look back at the words that were, with an international panel of celebrity lexicographers
TWC 86: Keith Houston on the interesting history of emoji and his new book, Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji
TWC 85: John Kelly, former content chief at Dictionary.com, on the joys of etymology, featuring a quiz on word origins
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Kristine Hunt
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Beverly Michaels
Amanda Miller
Mary Norris
Lori Paximadis
Deb Ring
Alice Steinke
Laura Weisman
Karen Wise
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Word Fans
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TWC 84: Cognitive psychologist Corinne Jorgenson about the possibilities and pitfalls of writing and editing with generative AI
TWC 83: Lorna Gibb on the day of the North American release of Rare Tongues: The Secret Story of Hidden Languages
TWC 82: Kelly Elizabeth Wright on new words and her work as an assistant professor of language sciences at the University of Wisconsin
TWC 81: A panel of international lexical superstars with a wide-ranging discussion about the words that typified 2024
TWC 80: Amanda Jones, author of That Librarian, about her ordeal that came with standing up to book banning in her Louisiana town
TWC 79: Jesse Schiedlower, author of The F-Word, now in its fourth edition, and the online Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction
TWC 78: Ben Yagoda, author of Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English, talking about English expressions making their way to the U.S.
TWC 77: Danica Salazar of the Oxford English Dictionary, talking about new entries reflecting Australian English
TWC 39: Ann Friedman, creator of Planet Word, the museum of language in Washington, D.C.
TWC 41: Russell Harper, of the Chicago Manual of Style and Daniel Heuman, the original developer of PerfectIt
TWC 42: Erin McKean, founder of the not-for-profit Wordnik.com, the world’s biggest online dictionary
TWC 43: Editing superstars Denise Cowle and Louise Harnby, co-hosts of The Editing Podcast
TWC 44: Editor and sensitivity reader Crystal Shelley, creator of the Conscious Language Toolkits for Editors and Writers
TWC 45: Fred Shapiro, editor of the updated edition of "The New Yale Book of Quotations"
TWC 46: Paula Froke, editor of the Associated Press Stylebook, on the decision-making process at the influential guide
TWC 47: Our second annual foray into word puzzle, featuring four puzzle creators from The Inkubator
TWC 48: Half dozen guests representing the dictionaries and organizations that selected a word of the year for 2021
TWC 49: Anne Curzan, the voice of linguistics for Michigan Public Radio on the show That's What They Say
TWC 50: Dennis Duncan of the University College London talking about his "Index, A History of the"
TWC 52: Danica Salazar of the Oxford English Dictionary and plans for the Oxford Dictionary of African American English
TWC 53: The brothers Zimmer, Ben and Carl, talking about writing about words and science
TWC 54: Ellen Jovin, author of Rebel With A Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian
TWC 55: Ryan North, author, illustrator, supervillain consultant, polymath and creator of Dinosaur Comics and more
TWC 56: Kelly Wright, a sociolinguist specializing in linguistic discrimination and its institutional outcomes
TWC 58: Joshua Blackburn, game designer and quizmaster and a chance to play the new League of the Lexicon
TWC 59: Words of the Year 2022, featuring an international panel of linguists and lexicographers
TWC 60: Gael Spivak, on the International Organization for Standardization's new standards for plain language
TWC 65: Maggie Lorenz, just after the Scripps National Spelling Bee, with some of the inside scoop
TWC 61: Copy editor Amy J. Schneider on her new book, Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction
TWC 66: Jeff Jarvis, internet pioneer and CUNY professor, talking about the age of print and the future of online
TWC 63: Roy Peter Clark, America’s writing coach talks about his latest book, Tell It Like It Is: A Guide to Clear and Honest Writing
TWC 67: Daniel Heuman, CEO of Intelligent Editing, on the future of artificial intelligence in editing
TWC 68: Megan Rosenbloom, author of Dark Archives, about books bound in human skin
TWC 69: Mignon Fogarty and the release of The Grammar Daily: 365 Quick Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl
TWC 70: Words of the Year 2023, featuring one of the greatest panels of wordsters ever assembled
TWC 71: Maggie Smith and Connie Schultz, two writers in different genres and first-time children’s book authors
TWC 73: Russell Harper previews The Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition, live from ACES 2024 in San Diego
TWC 74: Erin Brenner winner of the ACES Robinson Prize and author of The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors
TWC 75: Cory Doctorow, prolific science fiction author, activist and journalist, on his books, and monopolies in tech and publishing
TWC 76: Karen Yin, author of The Conscious Style Guide, a "roadmap for writing and speaking with sensitivity and awareness"