AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: terms from the recession. Dictionary editor Ben Zimmer is back with us. And it sounds like he's going to start with a popular term these days, shovel-ready. (Sound of shoveling) B...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: more of our conversation with Kelly Maxwell, co-director of the Program on Intergroup Relations at the University of Michigan. The program centers on a class called Intergroup Dia...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: we talk with Kelly Maxwell, co-director of the Program on Intergroup Relations at the University of Michigan. The program began about twenty years ago as a way to promote dialogue...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: reduced forms in spoken American English. RS: We're talking about forms like whaddaya -- meaning what do you, as in whaddaya say? Whaddaya Say? is also the title of a popular teac...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble and this week on WORDMASTER: we look at the growing need for interpreters in American hospitals and courts ... RS: And how technology is addressing shortages. AA: We start with health care. Faith Lapidus has o...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: What does prenup mean? That's a question from listener Muhammad Ali in Karachi, Pakistan. RS: A prenup is a prenuptial agreement, a contract between two people before they marry a...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: more advice about expressions of sympathy. RS: Last month, English teacher Lida Baker talked about things to say. Now we move on to writing. LIDA BAKER: I think if you're writing...
AA: I'm Avi Arditti, and this week on WORDMASTER: we check in with Grant Barrett at the American Dialect Society for the results of its 19th annual vote for words of the year, in this case for 2008. GRANT BARRETT: The Word of the Year was bailout --...
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: Slangman revisited. RS: A listener from Libya, Radwan Al-karash, sent us an e-mail earlier this month: I enjoy listening to your interviews with different people from different co...