When my daughter was eight years old, she came home one day and announced that she “knew what the B word was.” But she was confused: why was a word for a female dog – the most awesome of creatures, in her mind – also an insult for girls and women? 

She’d inadvertently hit on a great topic for the podcast: what did this insult say about our relationship to animals, to dogs specifically, and about the gendering of that relationship? What did it say about how our culture connects animals and women?

These questions sparked a series of conversations – with my former colleague, the linguist  Eric Russell,  feminist Josephine Donovan, comedian Adam Oliensis, my BFF from high school, Jennifer Lynch,  and, finally, with dog trainer Jamie Ianello. 

Following the path of these conversations, this new episode of In the Weeds explores the shifting uses and meanings of the B word and stumbles across broader questions about how language works and how we parent, as well as questions about how language shapes our relationships to each other and to other animals.

Thank you also to Stephanie Kovacs Cohen and Stacey Bone-Gleason from Arc Stages  who read the Shakespeare parts and to Adam Bernier who recorded my interview with Adam Oliensis.