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a composite graphic including a portrait of author Adam Aleksic wearing a white T-shirt and black shirt tied at the waist; slang words skibidi, rizz, sigma and 67; and the book cover of Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language
Portrait by Alefiyah Gandhi via Penguin Random House

The 21st Show

Best of: How social media is changing language, with @EtymologyNerd

If you have young people in your life, you might've heard them use words such as skibidi (SKIH-bih-dee) or rizz or sigma. Maybe that's mumbo-jumbo to you, as mumbo-jumbo was to someone else in the past. But Adam Aleksic says that's just how language evolves. And as we continue through the internet age — specifically the era of short form video — the rate of change in our language is only going to accelerate.

Aleksic, known online as @EtymologyNerd, writes about this in his new book, Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language.

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a white man in a tan suit crouches down and presents two gourds to a pair of Black children in traditional Nigerien dress — a boy wearing a long, cream-colored shirt and a girl in an orange dress with blue flowers embroidered on it;
U.S. Embassy Niamey on Facebook

The 21st Show

Retired Ambassador Eric P. Whitaker, from Illinois to Niger

A conversation with retired U.S. Diplomat Eric P. Whitaker. Born in DeKalb and raised there and in North Aurora, Whitaker earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he was also in the Marching Illini. Before joining the Foreign Service, he spent time in the Peace Corps in the Phillipines. His diplomatic postings include South Korea, Sudan, Iraq, Burkina Faso, and Niger, where he was ambassador from 2018 until his retirement in 2021.

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Illinois Arts Council Agency

These programs are partially sponsored by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.