What’s the most effective way to respond to someone who keeps apologizing for the same offense? Say, for example, that a co-worker is habitually late to work, and is forever apologizing for it, but does nothing to change that behavior? How do...
Columnist Lucy Kellaway wrote in the Financial Times about feeling less anxious and fearful in the workplace as she gets older. She concluded that such feelings are bog standard, a British expression meaning “common” or “widespread...
Is there a word you keep having to look up in the dictionary, no matter how many times you’ve looked it up before? Maybe it’s time for a mnemonic device. And: a listener shares a letter from Kurt Vonnegut himself, with some reassuring...
Josh in Dallas wondered whether pussyfooting is offensive after a colleague objected to it at work. The word isn’t inherently vulgar or sexist. It comes from pussycat and the image of a cat stepping softly. Since the 1890s, pussyfoot has meant to...
When someone says maybe, are they suggesting an option, or merely being polite? A caller from Anna, Texas, met a Canadian who used the word maybe to soften his imperatives. The same effect is often achieved with conditional phrases: “Would you...
Is a purple squirrel a) a diving board trick, b) a cocktail, or c) a rare job candidate with all the right qualifications? The answer is c. There have, however, been reports of purple squirrels of the sciurine variety. This is part of a complete...