Do English-speaking foreigners understand you better if you speak English with a foreign accent? A Californian says that on a recent visit to Armenia, he discovered the locals had an easier time if he spoke English with an Armenian accent. Is this...
drugs ‘n’ thugs n.— «Rand Beers, a Foreign Service officer who handled intelligence, counterterrorism and peacekeeping issues on the National Security Council and was later assistant secretary of state for International...
A listener calls from in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to say that in her native Spanish, she can use several different words for love to denote a whole range of feelings, depending on how close she is to the other person. She’s frustrated that...
NOC n.— «Barnes is a neophyte agent, an ex-doctoral candidate in Ottoman history, trained as a case officer under nonofficial cover, “known in the secret language of the club as NOC. As in: knock on wood.” Naive and...
family photo n.— «The Foreign Office immediately rang the mobiles of Kim Darroch, the Foreign Office head of news, and Alistair Campbell, Blair’s press secretary. The politicians were just heading off for an EU family photo session. Blair...
pig in the python n.— «As a DRI hire, I am part of the group of State employees that has come to be called “the pig in the python.” Prior to us (us being the pig), there were years of chronic under-staffing (the python), with...
