Why Most People Can’t Keep Secrets & Interesting Oddities of Language

Eye contact can be tricky. Too little and you look disinterested – too much and you look creepy. This episode begins with a few of the finer points of proper eye contact. http://www.spring.org.uk/2013/07/how-eye-contact-works.php It’s clear from research that keeping a secret is difficult to do. We often feel compelled to share secrets even if we promised not to. So why is that? According to my guest, keeping a secret causes stress and has been linked to diseases like ulcers and cancer. By telling secrets we unburden ourselves and relieve that stress. But revealing secrets can have huge negative repercussions to relationships and social status. Here to look at the science of secrets, why we tell them and who we tell them to, is Andrew Gold. He is an investigative journalist, podcaster and filmmaker who has made documentaries for the BBC and HBO. He hosts a podcast called On the Edge with Andrew Gold (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwU7HOfuSL5KD5s9hGoPuyVzN_VwG4Yi_) and he is author of the book, The Psychology of Secrets: My Adventures with Murderers, Cults and Influencers (https://amzn.to/3MiwXoS) Why do we have both upper and lower case letters? Why are letters in the order they are in (ABCDE etc.) There is a dot above a lower case i and j – what’s that for? And why do we capitalize the pronoun “I”? Other languages don’t. There are so many fascinating stories about how English came to be. And here to tell several of them is linguist Paul Anthony Jones. He has a popular YouTube channel where he talks about language and he is author of the book Why Is This a Question?: Everything about the origins and oddities of language you never thought to ask (https://amzn.to/3Z0Nrtm). While people discuss and debate whether humans are naturally monogamous, there are some animals on earth who truly are – or close to it. Listen as I reveal which animals love their mate for their entire life. https://www.treehugger.com/animals-that-mate-for-life-4869332 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices