Sayed lives in Houston, Texas, but grew up in Pakistan speaking Urdu and Punjabi. As someone who began learning English two years ago, he finds that he often mixes up gendered pronouns. It’s not surprising that he would confuse he with she and him...
A Palm Springs, California, listener was taught that when the word the is followed by a vowel, it should be pronounced with a long e, and otherwise with a schwa sound. However, there’s no grammatical basis for such a rule. This is part of a complete...
Choosing language that helps resolve interpersonal conflict. Sometimes a question is really just a veiled form of criticism and understanding the difference between “ask culture” and “guess culture” can help you know how to respond. • What words...
You’re at a social gathering and meet someone you’d like to know better. What do you ask to get a real conversation going? Some people lead with “What do you do?,” while others avoid talking about work entirely. Still others ask, “Where’d you go to...
Grant recommends two blogs about writing well and copyediting: Merrill Perlman writes The Language Corner blog for the Columbia Journalism Review, and Philip B. Corbett of the New York Times reports on actual grammatical and usage mistakes in that...
“Anymore, I play golf instead of tennis.” Grant explains that this grammatical construction is known as the “positive anymore.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The Positive Anymore” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, my name is...
