From Booksmart Studios, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.
I'm John McWhorter, and sometimes I am a pseudo-intellectual.
This is what I mean.
I have spent my adult life pretending that I have read the Brothers Karamazov.
I've been shameless about this.
At Columbia, I used to teach what's called Contemporary Civilizations.
And that is a sophomore course, which is essentially about philosophy and political science.
All of the students as freshmen had taken Literary Humanities.
I think that's what it's formally called.
Lit Hum is what it's called in general parlance.
And that one is about literature.
And so they were always making these casual references to one of the things they had read,
the Grand Inquisitor scene.
Karamazov.
And I'd always kind of say, oh, yes, yes.
Well, no, I've never actually read it.
It's getting kind of stupid.
And so I decided since I'm on sabbatical that I would actually make my way through it
because it looked interesting.
And you know, it is.