The words we choose can change attitudes — and change lives. A swing-dance instructor has switched to gender-neutral language when teaching couples. He says that using words like “leader” and “follower” actually works better than using gendered...
Poet Adrienne Rich wrote powerfully of the “psychic disequilibrium” that occurs when people don’t see their own identities reflected in the language of others, “as if you looked in the mirror and saw nothing.” This is part of a complete episode...
Sunny-side up eggs sometime go by the name looking at you eggs, an apparent reference to how the yolk in the middle of the egg white makes them resemble eyes. A similar idea appears in the German name, which translates as “mirror egg,” and in...
The 19th Century French writer Adolphe de Lamartine said that written language is like a mirror, which it is necessary to have in order that man know himself and be sure that he exists. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Written...
How do you pronounce biopic? The proper way to mention the genre of biographical motion picture has always been “BUY-oh-pick,” as opposed to the mirror of myopic. It’s not unusual to mispronounce a word if the spelling does not clearly indicate how...
Howdy! Recently we talked about why some puns seem clever, while others fall flat as a pancake. Also, what’s the difference between “luggage” and “baggage”? What do you call someone who doesn’t eat fish? Plus, a royal quiz, “the die is cast,”...