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Episode details

Radio 4,16 Jul 2019,28 mins

The most powerful word

Word of Mouth

Available for over a year

Michael Rosen explores the strange history of 'The', the most influential word in English. It's used more than twice as much as any other English word, and has given philosophers centuries of head-scratching. So how did a word which means nothing, and didn't even exist in Old English, come to dominate our language? With linguists Laura Wright and Jonathan Culpeper, and philosopher Barry Smith. Producer: Melvin Rickarby

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