This episode features a conversation I had with Kevin Stroud of the History of English Podcast at this year's virtual Intelligent Speech conference. We discussed reasons why the history of the Proto Indo-Europeans––the linguistic ancestors of nearly half the world's population––remains obscure to the general public. If you think it has something to do with racist, pseudoscientific scholarship that led to the concept of the Aryan race during World War II, we think so too.

For the video of our conversation, follow this link:

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/intelligentspeech/40

The idiom ‘dead ringer’ comes down to us from horse-racing slang, but a widely believed folk etymology links the idiom's origins to being buried alive. In this episode, we debunk the myths and get down to the written evidence behind the emergence of this phrase.

I'll be speaking with Kevin Stroud from the History of English podcast about the Proto Indo-Europeans at this year's Intelligent Speech Conference. To purchase tickets, follow this link.