Which phrase conveys a more heartfelt, sincere apology: I’m sorry or I apologize? The answer depends less on word choice and more on context. Some useful books about the art of apologizing: Sorry About That by Edwin Batistella and I Was Wrong by...
A caller from University Park, Maryland, wonders what’s really going on when someone says ” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “That’s a Great Question” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Jerry Hendershot. Hi, Jerry, where...
We heard from a woman who told her boyfriend about her plan to get her hair cut. He responded that he thought that particular style would make her hair “worse.” Does the word worse in this case imply that her hair was bad to begin with? This is part...
When a conversation on Twitter gets so crowded that replies contain more handles than actual comments, the result is a tipping Twitter canoe. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Twitter Canoe” Grant, you probably already know this...
Gibberish and its variants aren’t just for goofy teens in the wayback of the station wagon. As Jessica Weiss notes in Schwa Fire, the online magazine about language, people all over the world speak various forms of it. Her article features sound...
There’s a subtle difference between speaking and talking. Speaking tends to be more formal—you wouldn’t say Talker of the House of Representatives—while talking tends to connote conversation. For more on this topic, check out The Scene of Linguistic...