AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: a conversation about small talk. RS: Our guest is Debra Fine, author of a new book called The Fine Art of Small Talk.DEBRA FINE: It is not the business conversation, not the busin...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: some new elements in The Elements of Style.RS: The Elements of Style is a little book that for decades has served countless writers and editors. The two authors have long since pa...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: Anu Garg, creator of the A.Word.A.Day Web site and author of a new book called Another Word A Day: An All-New Romp Through Some of the Most Unusual and Intriguing Words in English...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: the second part of our conversation with Erin McKean, editor-in-chief of American dictionaries for Oxford University Press. RS: We start by talking about the proper way to get to...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: a pronunciation question from Quebec, Canada. RS: Nam-Thien Khuu writes by e-mail, I have heard [that the letter 't' is silent when it comes after a stressed syllable]. Am I right...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: new standards for English learners in American public schools. RS: One in nine public school students is a non-native English speaker; in twenty years, it could be one in four. Th...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: the paradox of a social greeting designed not to offend anyone that, by its very design, offends some people. RS: Next Sunday, most Americans will celebrate Christmas. This year,...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: palindromes aplenty! RS: A palindrome is something that reads the same backwards or forwards. Palindromes make us think of Janus, the Roman god with one face looking forward, anot...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: closing the dictionary on some words of 2005. RS: Grant Barrett is project editor of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang at Oxford University Press. We talked to him last...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: English teacher Lida Baker suggests five resolutions for people who want to improve their English in the New Year. LIDA BAKER: My first resolution that I would recommend people ma...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: giving doctors better skills to communicate bad news. RS: Anthony Back [pronounced like Bach] is a medical oncologist at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cance...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: we answer some listener mail. RS: Faisal in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is stuck in traffic -- traffic terminology, that is. Faisal is taking an English course. It seems that one day, many...
I'm Nancy Beardsley, filling in for Avi Arditti and Rosanne Skirble. This week on Wordmaster we'll talk about communication -- and miscommunication -- between mothers and daughters. Our guest is Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown University linguistics pro...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: acting like an actor to improve your memory. RS: Our guest is Tony Noice, an actor, director, teacher and cognitive researcher - someone who studies how we think. He and his psych...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: a track from the original Broadway cast recording of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. RS: The show is a musical satire of spelling competitions and the pressure to go t...
