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: 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: 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: 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: 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 p...
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 busi...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster, Musa Nushi, a 27-year-old Iranian with a master's degree in English teaching from Tehran University. MUSA NUSHI: English is in high demand in Iran because lots of people are going...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: the new TOEFL. RS: TOEFL is the Test of English as a Foreign Language. It's required by many colleges and universities in the United States and elsewhere as a measure of a student...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: We continue our discussion with University of Delaware English Professor Ben Yagoda about his recent book called The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing. RS: He based th...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: What to call the homeless of Hurricane Katrina? RS: Some have called them refugees. We asked Oxford English Dictionary consultant Ben Zimmer for a history of this word. BEN ZIMMER...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: Common Errors in English, from a professor who wrote the book. RS: Paul Brians began with a Web site. It got so popular, it led to a book called Common Errors in English Usage. No...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: a secret language of women. RS: There's a new American novel called Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. This work of historical fiction is set in a remote part of 19th-century China....
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: metaphors and the mind. RS: Avi, if I say bulls and bears, what comes to mind? AA: The zoo? RS: Well yes, but I could also be talking about the stock market. In a bull market, sto...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: advice about talking to teenagers. RS: Our friend Ali the English teacher in Iran told us about a book called Raising Children with Character. AA: He suggested we talk to the auth...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: more of our discussion of gerunds and infinitives with English teacher Lida Baker. RS: A gerund, remember, is a verb ending in -ing but used as a noun. An infinitive is a verb wit...
