A nurse in Jacksonville, Florida, finds that, without even being aware of it, she takes on the accent of her patients, and she wonders whether that’s because she’s in a profession where she needs to make strong connections quickly with people who...
Galen in White River, Arizona, asks: Is there really a “neutral” accent, and if so, what is it? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Is There Really a Neutral Accent?” Hi there, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Galen calling from...
An ornithologist says there’s a growing movement to change the name of a pink-footed bird currently called the flesh-footed shearwater. The movement reflects a growing understanding that using flesh-colored for “pink” fails to acknowledge the full...
George, an ornithologist, calls from Seattle, Washington, to discuss using of the term flesh-colored to describe something pinkish in color. The Century Dictionary, first published in 1889, defined flesh-color as “The normal color of the skin of a...
The slang term woke, as in stay woke, arose among African Americans to refer to being aware of social injustice or racism and then doing something about it in one’s own life. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of ““Woke” Means Aware of...
In his 1869 volume Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech, self-appointed grammar maven Richard Meade Bache gave specious advice against using the word love when you merely mean like. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Love or Like?”...