October 27, 2009

Today on Word of Mouth, the government of Saudi Arabia is using art therapy and religious education to reform militant extremists, even buying them cars and helping them find wives. They boast impressive recidivism rates, so should the U.S. consider following the Saudi’s lead? Plus, in this dizzying world of Twitter and Facebook posts, how is language changing? We’ll examine the next generation of Schoolhouse Rock with the star of the Grammar Girl podcast. And will 2009 be remembered as the year that hip-hop died? As electronic bleeps and bloops make their way into hip-hop, one critic says the golden years of the genre are fading before our bling-blinded eyes. Finally, in the age of Obama, what does it mean to sound black? The writer and performer Sarah Jones asks a linguist to pin down President Obama’s "blaccent."

(Photo by NRK P3 via Flickr/Creative Commons)