英语单词大师：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

英语单词大师：Got Its Name1

AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble with Wordmaster. Some time ago, a listener wrote to ask if there is a difference between America and United States. We think this is a good time to answer that question. RS: Recently we read about an effort by

英语单词大师：Teachers Convention2

AA: Im Avi Arditti, and this week on WORDMASTER -- whats it like to be an English teacher in America today? I put that question to an expert at the recent convention of the National Council of Teachers of English, in Baltimore, Maryland. Meet Carol J

英语单词大师：'Junk English'

AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER -- we talk about Junk English.RS: Thats the title of a new book. Author Ken Smith spent six months immersing himself in the language of popular culture. He found a lot of it junk, i

英语单词大师：Using a Dictionary

A: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble and, now that the Olympics are over, were back with WORDMASTER. This week -- going for gold in using the dictionary! RS: We looked up our friend Lida Baker. She teaches in the American Language Center at the Uni

英语单词大师：Only One You

AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble. This week on Wordmaster -- what to do when theres only one you.RS: Were talking about forms of address. Speakers of other languages may be used to having two ways to address someone -- one formal, the other in

英语单词大师：Resolutions

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: English teacher Lida Baker suggests five resolutions for people who want to improve their English in the New Year. LIDA BAKER: My first resolution that I would recommend people ma

英语单词大师：Greetings

I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: we say hello again to English teacher Lida Baker in Los Angeles to talk about greetings in America. AA: So now typically, if someone says 'how are you doing?' ... RS: Yeah, typically

英语单词大师：Forget the Gunplay

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: palindromes aplenty. RS: A palindrome is something that reads the same backwards or forwards. Palindromes make us think of Janus, the Roman god with one face looking forward, anot

英语单词大师：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

英语单词大师：In Ads, the Right Language

AA: I'm Avi Arditti, and this week on WORDMASTER: choosing the right language for advertising. The December issue of the Journal of Consumer Research contains a paper by Rohini Ahluwalia at the University of Minnesota and Aradhna Krishna at the Unive

英语单词大师：How 'Mavericks,' 'Earmarks'

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

英语单词大师：Where Spoken Languages

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: word order and the mind. A new study suggests that people naturally gesture in the order of subject-object-verb, regardless of the rules of their spoken language. Susan Goldin-Mea

英语单词大师：Meeting Some People Whose

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: epic eponyms. RS: An eponym, as dictionaries tell us, is a real or mythical person for whom something is or is believed to be named. For example, George Washington is the eponym o

英语单词大师：Forget the Gunplay, These

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: palindromes aplenty. RS: A palindrome is something that reads the same backwards or forwards. Palindromes make us think of Janus, the Roman god with one face looking forward and a

英语单词大师：Meet a Labor Lawyer Whose

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: our guest is Tom Dalzell, senior editor of the New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English -- and, now, the Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconven

英语单词大师：Aphorisms: How a Few Words

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: our guest is James Geary, author of a new book called Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists.RS: It's his second book on aphorisms. He calls these sayings the shortest liter

英语单词大师：No Need to Freak Out About

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble. This week on WORDMASTER: we're back with A. C. Kemp from slangcity.com. She calls it the online home of American slang. RS: We're talking about frequently used terms that her international students in her cla

英语单词大师：Why Some Speeches Just Float

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: from an interview on C-SPAN television, political pollster and strategist Frank Luntz talks about his book Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear.RS: At one

英语单词大师：American English

RS: I'm Rosanne Skirble with Avi Arditti, and this week on Wordmaster: Shakespeare in American English. This is the seventy-fifth anniversary year of the Folger Shakespeare Library, home to the largest collection of Shakespeare materials in the world