The new play English by Iranian-American playwright Sanaz Toossi powerfully evokes the challenges and rewards and changes involved in struggling to gain fluency in another language. Reviewing the play in the The New Yorker, Alexandra Schwartz...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s latest brain teaser requires two-word answers that repeat a final syllable. For example, if he said that in Cambodia, they’re gearing up for a windy rainstorm any day now, what would he be talking about? This is...
Pat from Bishop, California, shares a story about a college history professor who gave a detailed lecture about a heroic Norwegian named Loof Lirpa. Only after taking extensive notes did the students realize that the professor was lecturing on the...
Linguist Deborah Tannen has done extensive research into contrasting conversational styles, particularly the contrast between high-involvement speakers, whose interruptions signal great enthusiasm and engagement, and high-considerateness speakers...
Think about your last extended conversation with a stranger. Did that conversation feel too long? Too short? Or did it end exactly when you wanted it to? Two new studies by a Harvard psychologist found that conversations rarely stop when both...
How does social context shape our perception of language? When hiking the Appalachian Trail, a young woman from Wyoming found that fellow hikers assumed she was from another country, not only because of how she spoke, but also how she looked...