Fry's English Delight - Series 6 [b]Episode 1 - Rhetoric Rehabilitated[/b] (26 August 2013) It's a 2500 year old system of public speaking, a system of spoken language designed to persuade. It was the bedrock of democracy, widely admired and studied until fairly recently. Now though, "rhetoric" is usually considered the language of wily politicians and overblown dictators - it's not to be trusted, it's misleading, it's a posh word for spin. In this programme, the first of a new series of Fry's English Delight, Stephen Fry outlines the history of rhetoric, and argues that we should try and restore its original noble meaning. He's helped by Professor Jennifer Richards and Sam Leith, both rhetoric fans, who use rhetoric to dismember three speeches: a backslapping post-Olympic one by Boris Johnson; a chillingly explicit one by Colonel Tim Collins to his battalion at the beginning of the 2003 Iraq war, and a moving one by US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. She was the victim of an attempted assassination, yet two years later she overcame her injuries to deliver an impassioned speech to the US Senate. It was simple and to the point, yet our experts conclude she was still using rhetorical devices. Stephen Fry and Sam Leith concede there's an element of "geekery" in rhetoric. They enjoy a bout of "figure spotting" - revelling in terms like "antanaclasis" and "dialysis". What emerges is that patterns of public speech (the power of three, for example) may have been set down in ancient times - but they still work. Speechwriting trainer Alan Barker and members of the Cambridge Union Debating Society demonstrate how standards of oratory and debate are key to our civilisation. Producer: Nick Baker A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4. [b]Episode 2 - Spelling[/b] (02 September 2013) The spelling of English has always been a strange. As Stephen Fry puts it "I before e except after c. Weird!" Stephen asks how our spelling became so irregular, and whether we can do anything to simplify it - with the help of Professor David Crystal who explains how a history of attempted language reform has probably made things steadily worse. The programme starts with a mysterious postcard from a listener, in an almost unrecognisable form of English writing. Stephen eventually gets a translation from his huge band of Twitter followers. He also finds out how the commercial success of My Fair Lady helped fund a 20th Century attempt at reform, and hears from a current member of the English Spelling Society about how she would "tidy up" English spelling. What emerges is that there is probably only one set of circumstances in which language can be systematically reformed. Lexicographer Noah Webster knew that his fellow countrymen in the New World would welcome a form of writing that distanced them from their British "oppressor" - and his dictionary, with its simplified spelling, was an instant success. Producer: Nick Baker A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4. [b]Episode 3 - Words without End[/b] (09 September 2013) Have you been 'trolled' on the Internet lately? Or perhaps 'bangalored' at work? Just a couple of the hundreds of new words absorbed by the English language every year. Like the ever expanding universe, our lexicon is getting bigger and bigger - truly words without end. Since the publication of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1928, its number of words has more than doubled. It's doubtful there will be another printed edition. Online since the year 2000, it receives two million page views a month. Stephen Fry, a self-confessed dictionary addict, looks at how dictionaries have changed since Dr Johnson's day. Stephen's guest is Michael Rundell, Editor in Chief of Macmillan Dictionaries - not an example of the 'cardiganed old duffer' lexicographer of yore but one who has the latest computer software at his fingertips. Card indexes have given way to corpora of billions of words, assessing the latest and most accurate word usage, and 'crowdsourcing' has democratised the compilation of twenty-first century dictionaries. Stephen and Michael discuss the sources from which new words spring, including social media and global English. Actress and writer Nina Wadia provides a sketch using examples of today's Indian English, which in the future might join bungalow and pyjamas, their nineteenth century compatriots, in the O.E.D. Averil Coxhead from New Zealand contributes her research - how many words do we know and, perhaps more importantly, how many can we use? And for fellow Radio 4 wordaholics, Stephen offers a special vocabulary test Producer: Merilyn Harris A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4. [b]Episode 4 - WTF[/b] (16 September 2013) In a special late night Fry's English Delight, Stephen Fry and guests ponder the history, culture and legality of "The F word". With the help of language expert Professor Geoffrey Hughes we trace it back to the thirteenth century, when it was fairly harmless, and chart its progress to the present day. What makes the history of the word interesting if not difficult is that there was always a taboo about writing it down. Many explanations about the provenance of the word, like Fornicate Under Command of the King, are entertainingly off-target. Denis Norden, present when it was first used on live television in 1965, remembers an even more shocking example from his teenage years in the 1930's; Graham Linehan, co-creator of Father Ted tells a story about the Irish word "feck", which he says is less offensive than it sounds. Meanwhile Kathy Burke reflects on how the English F word is used and misused today. Stephen's guests discuss the word in its sexual context and whether less "aggressive" forms are preferable. They also talk about its changing level of taboo. Geoffrey Robertson adds a legal perspective, reflecting on the word's prominence in the Lady Chatterley Trial and its current legal status And lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower guides us through his own lexicon, The F Word, commenting on the versatility of the word and the diversity of uses to which it has been put. Producer: Nick Baker A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4. File Information: First broadcast: BBC R4 26 Aug - 16 Sept 2013 Type: MPEG 1.0 Layer 3 - 128 kbps mp3 – 44 khz - Stereo Duration: 44 minutes Webrip Description is subject to change to better reflect program content and/or correct upload error and may not match attached text file.