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Brings together in a single hour The Why Factor; More or Less and Trending.

The Thought Show: Nuns on the Rise

Factual: Life Stories

Nuns on the Rise

07/05/2015

BBC World Service - The Thought Show, Nuns on the Rise

More Or Less checks the figures behind a reported trebling of Catholic nuns in Britain

More Or Less checks the figures behind a reported trebling of Catholic nuns in Britain, BBC Trending reports on a Malaysian trouble maker and the Why Factor looks at jargon.

In More Or Less Tim Harford checks out recently reported figures showing that the number of Catholic nuns in the UK has trebled in the past five years, reaching its highest level since 1990.  Are we witnessing the so-called ‘Pope Francis effect’? And what is the long term trend in the UK and across the world? Plus, Matt Parker the stand-up mathematician responds to a listener’s query about his theory on the best way to find a life partner.

Alvin Tan describes himself as a sex blogger, trouble maker and freedom of speech activist. He is currently facing trial for insulting the month of Ramadan and posting pornographic pictures on the internet. In BBC Trending, Mukul Devichand finds out how he became so big on social media, why he is claiming asylum in the US, and what conservative Malaysia thinks of their infamous naughty boy. And Tse Yin Lee from BBC Monitoring explains the challenge for the Chinese of learning English and why hundreds of thousands of Chinese took to social media after the chief executive of Chinese telecoms giant company Xiaomi addressed a conference in India, in English.

In The Why Factor, Mike Williams asks why we use jargon - the deliberate obfuscation of language, or in other words, saying things in a way that makes it difficult to understand. George Orwell hated this ‘inflated style’ of writing. In the 1940s British civil servant Sir Ernest Gowers wrote a book - Plain Words - which has been reprinted again and again, most recently by his great grand-daughter who thinks jargon is as bad as ever.

(Photo: Nuns pray during a vigil to call for peace in Ukraine, Syria and all countries tormented by persecutions and war. Credit: AP)

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