A Rose Is Still A Rose

Just as we started working on Here Today, our colleagues on In Conversation, WFPL's weekly talk show, did an episode about the investments coming to west Louisville.

After the show aired, the station got this email from a listener:

Please stop calling the West End "West Louisville!" There is another town, way down river from here, called West Louisville. Here in the Metro, we have the South End and the East End and the West End.  Calling the latter by another town's name further acts to make it "other" and not belonging to all of us in the South End, where I grew up, and the East End, where I now reside.

After some lively conversation, we decided that on Here Today, we would use both terms, "west Louisville" and "the West End," interchangeably, but the conversation didn't end there. We started asking folks we interviewed for the show which term they use, and why.

On this episode, you'll hear some of those answers. And we'll speak to a linguist who's from Louisville, about how the language we use shapes the way we think and feel.

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