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Patrick Cox

Language Editor

The World in Words

Patrick Cox is The World's language editor and host of the podcast The World in Words.

At The World, I switch between editing and reporting, broadcasting and podcasting, in-depth series and tweeting.  Words connect what I do. On a good day they are intelligible.Since 2008, I have been running The World's language desk and hosting a podcast called The World in Words. Before that, I reported on politics and culture, contributing to series on global obesity, the mental scars of Hiroshima and others.London is my home town, Cambridge, MA, my adopted hometown. I have also lived in Alaska, California, Denmark and Moldova. Because of my job, I am sometimes mistakenly taken to be some kind of linguistic expert— by people who have not been exposed to my spelling or grammar. Despite that, I speak reasonable Danish, poor Chinese and atrocious French. I can read menus and follow soccer commentary in a few other languages.Follow Patrick Cox on Twitter. The World in Words podcast is on Facebook and iTunes. 

sign for the University of Alberta on the university's campus

Why are some sounds funny?

To English speakers, the word, “peanut” isn’t especially funny. But “peanut” in Serbian, “kikiriki” is widely considered by Serbs to be the funniest word in their language. This raises the question of why people laugh at some words (“poop”) but not at others (“treadmill”). Does it come down to their meanings? Or are people responding to their sounds? Psycholinguist Chris Westbury set out to discover the answer.

Linguist Thomas Wier and Udi activist Alexander Kavtaradze at a memorial to Zinobi Silikashvili, the founder of the village of Zinobiani, Georgia. The inscription includes both Caucasian Albanian (Udi) and Georgian script.

Udi, a dying language with its own alphabet, sees a revival in this small Georgian town

Language
Customers walk into the Dedaena Bar in Tbilisi past a QR code notice

Georgia’s proxy war with Russia has linguistic ripple effects

Language
French-speaking Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, has abandoned dwellings are everywhere due to storms, erosion, and rising sea-levels.

Storms and rising sea levels threaten to wipe out French language in Louisiana’s bayou country

Language
Julie Sedivy and other family members visiting her father’s family gravesite in his village of Moravská Nová Ves.

‘Memory speaks’: How to reclaim your mother tongue without having to relearn it from scratch

Language
A broadcast studio at Radio Haiti

Radio Haiti finds a new home with a trilingual archive at Duke University

Media

Radio Haiti was shut down shortly after journalist Jean Dominique’s assassination in 2000. Now, a trove of audio material has found new life with an archival collection at Duke University available in French, Haitian Creole and English.

Taiwan-born artist Wen-hao Tien (left) started inviting people from around the world to teach her songs from their homelands as part her exhibit on immigration experiences at an art center in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Learning through singing: This artist wants you to teach her a song in your native language

Language

Is it easier to sing than speak in a foreign language? Taiwan-born artist Wen-hao Tien has put that question to the test as part of a new exhibit about the immigrant experience in Boston, Massachusetts.

Pardis Mahdavi (center) gathers with other family members based in the US.

The tiny but mighty hyphen: Does it unite or divide?

Language

Some Americans, like Pardis Mahdavi, feel caught between two worlds. Her parents immigrated to the US from Iran, and she’s never really felt completely at home in either country. So now, she’s adopted a hyphenated identity.

Venezuelan American Joanna Hausmann is pictured with her mom, Ana Julia Jatar. In quarantine, Hausmann has turned to her family for material.

Two comedians reshape their acts during lockdown

COVID-19

A public health crisis. An economic crisis. And no live shows. It’s these challenges and more that stand-up comedians Joanna Hausmann and Joe Wong are navigating during the pandemic.

This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (round blue objects), also known as the novel coronavirus, the virus that causes COVID-19, emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab which was isolated from a patient in the US. 

Fires, orchestras, parachutes. Some other ways to describe coronavirus — besides war.

COVID-19

If you think the war metaphor is being overused, you’re not alone. But why is this kind of rhetoric such a go-to for world leaders? And should we consider other metaphors?