Your aunt is coming to town and you’d like to take her to dinner. You have 2 restaurants in mind so you ask a friend what he knows about them. He prefaces his positive statements about one restaurant with strongly negative statements about the other,...
Vocabulary improvement might not be one of the favorites of the New Year Resolution crowd, but for those who like words maybe it should be. Like money management and weight loss, two of the most popular resolutions, vocab improvement does a lot for one’s self-image...
The Holiday Grinch concedes that while Purchasing and Acquiring seem to be the stars of the show this month, there are other roles in the play which are worth noting, and which save the show from collapsing into total commercial gloom. The Grinch refers to...
“That was really something!” I said recently. My friend asked if I could expand on “something” so she’d know what I meant. In line at Starbucks one fellow asked his friend if he’d gone to the party after the game. “Yeah, it was ridiculous!” spat his...
Visit https://languageatwork.com/?p=530 for full content, other blog posts, and more! Party season is here and with it, a common communication concern: How to Do Party Talk. Many people have confided to me their dread of cocktail parties, receptions, coffee hours, conference socials, or even the spontaneous...
Visit https://languageatwork.com/a-coffee-clash for full content, other blog posts, and more! A couple has just gotten coffee at Joe’s. He is outside; she is standing in the doorway. I’ve stopped walking for a minute so my dog can investigate things nearby, so I watch the couple. “There’s a...