What your accent says about you with linguist Valerie Fridland

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

November 12, 2026

Duration

44m

Channel

Re:Thinking with Adam Grant

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Have you ever wondered why people in different regions use different words, or why some accents sound “smarter” than others? If you have, you might be a word nerd. In this episode, Adam is joined by fellow word nerd Valerie Fridland, linguist and author of the book Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents. Valerie helps Adam unpack some of his linguistic pet peeves, debates the value of the Oxford comma, and guesses where Adam is from based on his accent. She also explains how language and accents evolve over time, how kids and adults adapt differently to new linguistic environments, and why some people are better at imitating accents than others. Follow our podcasts! ReThinking with Adam Grant: https://link.mgln.ai/kdYcyx The TED Podcasts is a collection of podcasts for the curious. The TED Podcasts videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy (https://www.ted.com/about/our-organiz...). For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at https://media-requests.ted.com.

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Adam Grant

  host

  Organizational psychologist and host of the podcast Re:Thinking with Adam Grant.

• Valerie Fridland

  guest

  Linguist specializing in language variation and accents, featured as the episode’s expert guest.

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Re:Thinking with Adam Grant, featuring Adam Grant and Valerie Fridland, What your accent says about you with linguist Valerie Fridland explores Linguist Valerie Fridland explains what language and accents signal The conversation begins with punctuation and email etiquette, contrasting how conventions matter in writing versus how speech evolves without prescriptive rules.

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