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 need her help. When trying to connect with a stranger or a group, it’s not uncommon to take on their accent or gestures. Pietro Bortone offers a helpful explanation of what’s called linguistic accommodation in Language and Nationality: Social Inferences, Cultural Differences, and Linguistic Misconceptions. This is part of a complete episode.
After our conversation about towns with extremely short names, many listeners wrote to tell us about Why, Arizona. Others pointed out that there are towns called Ely in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada. Other super-short appellations include Rye, New...
Debbie from Crawfordsville, Florida, says that when she and her husband reach an impasse while working on something, they’ll say Let’s grok about it, which they use to mean “Let’s think about it.” Grok was coined by...
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