After our conversation about monastic sign language, Cameron Brick, a social psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, emailed to share his own stories about nonverbal communication and the power of silence. This is part of a...
What’s the difference between the words kind and nice? It’s perhaps best described as the difference between demeanor and behavior. Being nice refers to how you appear to be, whereas kindness refers to how you act, and what you do for others. This...
A question for heterosexual guys: What words do you use to describe other men who are good-looking? Attractive? Handsome? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Describing Good-Looking Men” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is...
What’s your hobby? Or, rather, do you call your interests or passions hobbies at all, or does the word hobby connote something frivolous or strangely obsessive? The term hobby goes back to a nickname for a horse, which transferred to the popular...
When someone finds out where you’re from, do they ask if you know so-and-so? The cynics out there may refer to this as the six degrees of stupid, but even urban dwellers can admit that the answer is “yes” more often than the odds would suggest. How...
There are some words we just love to mispronounce, like “spatula” as “spatular,” which rhymes with “bachelor.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Intentional Mispronounciation” Do you remember that program that we did quite a while...