Episode 22

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Published on:

18th Mar 2026

Episode 22: utopia

The word "utopia" was invented in 1516 by Sir Thomas More for his book of the same name. But a utopia seems to draw from two separate Greek notions: a "non-existent place" and a "good place." In today's episode, we consider the confused origins of "utopia," and we consider the word's appearance in the novel Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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Music: Adapted from Sonatine by Maurice Ravel, performed by Irene Posviatovska (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

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About the Podcast

Original Public Meaning
Exploring the ancient roots of modern words
Where do our modern English words come from? And what do their long histories tell us about our own ideas and the wider world? On Original Public Meaning, we unearth the ancient foundations of our language and consider how its vast, rich literature—fiction, essays, science, and more—can help us savor our words today.
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Charles McNamara

Director of Greek and Latin Language, University of Minnesota