Examine the system of regular and irregular verbs and how they move from one category to another - with a little help from the Old English system of weak and strong verbs. Then turn to the world of auxiliary verbs, where "shall" is in decline and "gonna" is on the rise.

English spelling is full of irregularities - borrowings, unpredictable stresses, letters doing double duty, and vowel shifts. In this first of two lectures on spelling, examine the history of the English alphabet and the role of the Norman French, English scribes, and the printing press in creating our modern standardized spelling.

Who owns words? Is it our responsibility to protect brands such as Xerox and Google from legal misuse? Unpack the concerns about the proper use of trademarks and the process of "genericization," whereby a word such as "zipper" moves from a proper noun to a generic term.

Now turn to questions of usage and uncover the secret life of nouns. The Latin borrowing means the plural of "focus" is "foci," but what do you do with the non-Latin "octopus"? Or "hippopotamus"? After studying history's role in English plurals, consider the generic pronoun problem. Is "they" an acceptable substitute for "he or she"?

Political language matters. The terms you use shape the frame of the debate, which, in turn, can sway voters. Take a glimpse behind the stage of debate and learn about the surprising history of terms such as "right," "left," "liberal," "lobbyist," and more, and see how language brands hot-button issues such as the "death tax."

Take on one of the most pervasive binaries in the English language: male and female. This first lecture on gendered lexicon introduces the culture of patriarchy and its effect on English, from the pejoration of words such as "wench" and "girl" to the status of gendered pairings such as "governor" and "governess."

Humans love to play with words, whether it's to better express what we have to say or to show off a personal style. Study the ways in which new words are created, from combining, shortening, and functional shifts to blends, back formation, and reduplication. This rule-governed creativity gives us everything from slang to technology jargon.

Conclude your course by considering the creativity of Shakespeare. The OED credits him with making up 1,700 new words, but how many of those did he actually create? And do any of us have the authority to make up new words? You'll also see how you can apply the linguistic tools from this course to investigate the living, changing language all around you.

Build your vocabulary with this lecture by surveying the influence of Latin on English during the Renaissance. English was gaining stature in part by borrowing specialized Latin words in the realms of science, music, education, and literature, but some purists argued that English didn't need these "ink-horn" words.

Turn from the origins of words to pronunciation and the system that underlies the variations in dialects. This lecture dives into such regionalisms as the Southern pen-pin merger and the Midwest vowel shift, as well as the socially constructed judgments people make about different dialects.