The difference between Mandarin and Cantonese points to a general difference between languages and dialects: languages tend to have a whole different nationalism or geopolitical power associated with them. For more about Mandarin and Cantonese in...
You wouldn’t say the NASA launched a space shuttle, or you watched March Madness on the CBS. Similarly, initialisms like NSA and FBI are sometimes said without the article, especially by insiders. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...
“I know, right?!” is a friendly way to acknowledge that you understand someone. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “I Know, Right?!” Hi, you have A Way with Words. Hi, my name is Julie. Hi, Julie, where are you...
John from Richmond, Indiana, wonders whether writing voilà as walla, wallah, or vwala is becoming acceptable after seeing the mistake in a school note and online. The spelling voilà comes from French for “there it is,” even though many Americans use...
When it comes to language, a listener from Dallas wants to know, as a fellow Texan might put it, “who’s the decider”? Grant explains that nobody makes the rules about language, and everybody does. For those seeking professional...
Many of the world’s languages apparently derived from a prehistoric common ancestor known as Indo-European. But since no one ever wrote down a word of it, how do we know what it was like?