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822
January 26, 2024

The Words to Say It

What it means to have words—and to lose them.

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A family. Mother and four children with arms around each other, dad in foreground taking the family selfie.

Photo courtesy Youmna ElSayed, pictured here with her husband and four children.

Prologue

Prologue

Sometimes we don’t want to say what’s going on because putting it into words would make it real. At other times, words don’t seem to capture the weight of what we want to say. Susanna Fogel talks about her friend Margaret Riley, who died earlier this week. (6 minutes)

By Ira Glass
Act One

The Speaking Part

The story of a woman from Gaza City who ran out of words. Seventy-two days into the war, Youmna stopped talking. (27 minutes)

​​We first heard Youmna on Al Jazeera’s podcast The Take.

By Chana Joffe-Walt
Act Two

Toska

For years there was a word that Val’s mother did not want to use. Val sets out to figure out why. (22 minutes)

By Valerie Kipnis

Song:

“Searching for a New Word” ” by Con Brio

Related

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859: Chaos Graph
Apr. 25, 2025

Act One: Solving For Why

American doctors returning from Gaza compare notes and start to see a pattern. (28 minutes)
195: War Stories
Sept. 28, 2001

Act Two: Letters To Home

One way to understand what war will be like is to understand what past wars were like.
861: Group Chat
May 30, 2025

Act One: I’m Fine, Don’t Worry

When Yousef Hammash left Gaza a year ago, his sisters decided to stay behind.

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Sept. 6, 2013

How I Got Into College

How a stolen library book got one man into his dream school and changed his life forever. Or at least that's the story he tells himself.

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Mar. 10, 2000

In Dog We Trust (2000)

Exactly how much are the animals that live in our home caught up in everyday family dynamics?

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