英语单词大师：Excuses

AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: Just in time for those unattainable New Years resolutions, the art -- and danger -- of making excuses. SCHLENKER: What excuses do is try to diminish personal responsibility.RS: Bar

英语单词大师：Law and Language

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble and this week on Wordmaster -- language and the law. RS: That's what our guest today writes about in a column for The Green Bag, which calls itself An Entertaining Journal of Law. David Franklin is a visiting

英语单词大师：Learning Online

AA: E-mail is just one of the benefits of the Internet. Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER we look at learning English online. RS: Charles Kelly is an English professor who has devoted countless hours to three Web sites

词汇大师--Jack and the Beanstalk

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: Our theme is food, or more precisely, slang having to do with food. After all, Thanksgiving is just a day away, and the traditional way to celebrate the holiday is with a big, fes

英语单词大师：Hunting for the Snark in

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER, we talk with David Denby. He's a film critic for the New Yorker magazine and author of a new book. In it, he attacks a form of expression used increasingly in public discourse in

英语单词大师：To Catch On to Phrasal Verbs, It

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster -- English teacher Lida Baker joins us from Los Angeles to talk about phrasal verbs. RS: The first word is a verb. The second word, sometimes even a third, is usually a preposition

词汇大师-- Terms That Janus Would Have Loved

I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: two-faced words, also known as Janus words after the Roman god with two faces looking in opposite directions or contronyms. RS:We are talking about a word that has developed two oppos

词汇大师-- With E-mail, a Few More Keyboard Taps

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: e-mail etiquette. RS: Wendi Eldh [pron. ell'd] conducts business training programs. One of them focuses on helping clients communicate by e-mail, which is harder than you might th

词汇大师-- Small Talk, American-Style

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: language in action. We have two reports. RS: We start with a program in the International Business School at Brandeis University near Boston, Massachusetts. It helps introduce for

词汇大师-- What Are Your Agenda for the Meeting?

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: we talk with Pat O'Conner, co-author with her husband Stewart Kellerman of a new book called Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language. RS: But fir

词汇大师-- Hunting for the Snark

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER, we talk with David Denby. He's a film critic for the New Yorker magazine and author of a new book. In it, he attacks a form of expression used increasingly in public discourse in

词汇大师-- How 'Mavericks,' 'Earmarks' Made Their Way

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: we continue our discussion with dictionary editor Ben Zimmer about terms related to the presidential campaign. RS: One word that's being associated with John McCain -- or John McC

词汇大师-- Writing Prompt for Teens

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: encouraging high school students to write about the issues they want the next U.S. president to address. RS: That is the aim right now of the National Writing Project, a federally

词汇大师-- Teaching English in Syria

AA: I'm Avi Arditti and this week on WORDMASTER: meet Safwan Abdulsalam Kadoora. He's the director of the English department at Karma. That's an English and French language center that opened in Damascus, Syria, in two thousand six. SAFWAN KADOORA: W

词汇大师-- To Master Rhythms of English

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: expanding on reductions. When speakers compress a phrase like going to into gonna, or what do you into whaddaya, that's a reduction. We mentioned their importance when we talked l

英语单词大师：Pronunciation Rules

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: some pronunciation rules to help make your speech sound more natural. RS: Back with us from Los Angeles is Nina Weinstein, author of the English teaching book Whaddaya Say? Guided

英语单词大师：Quotations Change

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: our guest is Fred Shapiro, the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. RS: Six years in the works, this newly published book contains about thirteen thousand entries from all time

英语单词大师：'House' or 'Home'

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: using the Internet to help make sense of words that are closely related. RS: Like house and home, for example. Both describe a living situation. But house refers to the building,

英语单词大师：Wanna, Gonna

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: reduced forms in spoken American English. RS: We're talking about forms like whaddaya -- meaning what do you, as in whaddaya say? Whaddaya Say? is also the title of a popular teac

英语单词大师：English in Russia

I'm Avi Arditti and this week on Wordmaster: teaching English in Russia. (MUSIC)A lunchtime concert at Saint-Petersburg State University. Last month I had the opportunity to speak at two conferences -- one was a meeting of SPELTA, the St. Petersburg