Kevin Stroud
201 episodes listed below
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The Spoken History of a Global Language
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
It turns spelling, pronunciation, and etymology into a continuous historical account shaped by literature, migration, politics, and print.
The History of English Podcast follows English through the historical forces that changed how people spoke, spelled, and understood it. The host builds a chronological account in which monarchy, migration, publishing, and theatre become evidence for linguistic change.
Shakespeare's rhymes become pronunciation evidence, if your idea of a plot twist is a missing hard G.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A 1586 Latin model shapes English grammar, from fading endings to the names of the letter Z.
Modern English grammar comes through as something shaped after the fact, not handed down fully formed. Episode 165 follows the first attempt to describe English grammar in 1586, when Latin supplied the model, into an Elizabethan moment when older inflectional endings had already…
A steady maritime history of early shipboard language moving into everyday English during a politically unsettled decade.
Episode 187 follows the arrival of seafaring language into English in the late 1620s, placing shipboard terms alongside Charles I's succession, his clashes with Parliament, and England's early Caribbean colonies on St. Kitts and Barbados.
A clear K-through-Zed tour of how English spelling holds traces of changing pronunciation.
Episode 185 treats English spelling as a record of older speech, following pronunciation in the early 1600s as English was beginning to travel more widely.
A clear, measured look at how migration and local dialects carried English into new forms.
Episode 180 tracks English as it moves beyond England in the first decade of the 1600s, following speakers who made permanent homes elsewhere and brought their local dialects with them.
Shakespeare's grammar becomes a moving target, from "what see you" to "the most unkindest cut of all."
Episode 171 frames Shakespeare's difficulty as a language story rather than a test of reader patience. The History of English Podcast looks at why a writer so central to English can still sound unstable to modern ears, tracing that effect through Elizabethan grammar, looser…
Shakespeare, empire, and Essex are tied to a careful account of how English kept changing.
Shakespeare serves as the episode's pivot, carrying the story from the early 1600s into the stubborn afterlife of his language in everyday speech.
A clear look at how Shakespeare's comedy and English stage vocabulary developed together.
The discussion follows Shakespeare's early comedies as a way to track how English comedy took shape in the early modern period. It works best when theater and language stay linked, especially in the way interlude, prelude, postlude, and jig keep older ideas of play alive inside…
A careful tour of how confusion leaves marks on ordinary English.
The piece presents early modern English as a language in motion, shaped by trade and settlement and growing more international along the way. It follows how encounters with unfamiliar words and names created confusion that still leaves traces in English, from misdivision to…
Multi-part dramatized retellings of scandals like OceanGate's Titan and the Lehman Brothers collapse.
A season-by-season history show pairing dramatized Rasputin and Salem narratives with historian interviews.
Greg Young and Tom Meyers explain how New York City's streets took shape.
Fashion historians April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary dig into garments, letters, and the people who wore them.
Episode 180, "English on the Move," follows English into the first decade of the 1600s, when James I promoted a unified "Great Britain" with a new coin and the forerunner of the Union Jack.
Episode 179, “Defining Moments,” traces several early-1600s turning points in English history and English usage, from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to the first dictionary of English.
Episode 169 of The History of English Podcast, “Shakespeare Documented,” uses baptismal registers, marriage bonds, tax records, and wills to separate what is known about William Shakespeare from later speculation.
The episode links the 1592 London plague to Shakespeare's turn toward poetry, including Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece in 1594.
The History of English Podcast episode 167, “The Rhythm of English,” focuses on stress, rhythm, and the way English alternates stressed and unstressed syllables.
The History of English Podcast bonus episode 77, “Rise and Fall of the Classic Movie Accent,” traces the Mid-Atlantic accent from upper-class American speech into Hollywood sound films.
Elizabethan England is full of arguments about witches, demons, and fairies.
The History of English Podcast episode 181, “Heaven and Earth,” links two early-1600s developments: the King James Bible and the telescope.
Episode 178 of The History of English Podcast follows Shakespeare’s plays from the Stationers’ Register entry of August 4, 1600 through Hamlet’s earliest publication trail.
Episode 187, "Islands and Sea," follows English history from 1624 to 1630, starting with John Donne’s 1624 line "No man is an island" and ending with John Smith’s 1626 nautical guide A Sea Grammar.
Episode 182 of The History of English Podcast follows English words and place names across the early 1600s, from Quebec City and Manhattan to Bermuda and Jamestown.
Episode 175 of The History of English Podcast examines "The English of Romeo and Juliet," treating Shakespeare’s most-adapted play as evidence for late-1500s English.
The episode begins with cotton.
The episode begins with plays from the late 1500s.
The History of English Podcast episode 173, “Fooling Around,” uses Shakespeare’s early comedies, including The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Merchant of Venice, to track how English comedy changed in the late 1500s.
Episode 176 of The History of English Podcast links Elizabethan playhouses such as the Theatre, the Curtain, the Rose, and the Swan to words that still survive in English, including pit, orchestra, gallery, balcony, box office, cash, scene, and scenario.
The episode looks at early modern English through the spelling of its words.
The episode opens in the early 1630s.
Episode 185 of The History of English Podcast continues the early 1600s survey of spelling and pronunciation with letters K through Z, using spellings to trace sound change.
The History of English Podcast episode 172, “Succession,” links the word succession to late-1500s dynastic politics in England and France, Shakespeare’s early plays, and the shift that turned endings like -tion into “shun.” Queen Elizabeth’s intended heir, James of Scotland, and the French claimant Henry of Navarre appear alongside Henry III, the Duke of Guise, and the Day of the Barricades in 1588.
The History of English Podcast Episode 177, “Dressed for Success,” ties the 1599 Globe Theatre, Philip Henslow’s Rose records, and Shakespeare’s Henry V to a history of Elizabethan clothing.
Episode 186 of the History of English podcast covers the early 1620s, tracing how Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth and Dutch colonization of Manhattan shaped the English language.
This episode of the History of English Podcast examines how the Spanish Armada and Elizabethan-era conflicts with Spain shaped the English language.