Pop Culture - Language

September 1, 2011

Interview with Sandra Lamb, author of the book How to Write It: Complete Guide to Everything You'll Ever Write

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Mike Carruthers:
Have you ever had to write something and had trouble saying what it is that you want to say? Well, here’s some help

Sandra Lamb:
Think through your message all the way from beginning to end and be able to state what you are going to write in 1 message sentence.
 

August 29, 2011

Interview with John McWhorter, author of the book What Language Is: And What It Isn’t and What It Could Be

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Mike Carruthers:
Language is more about speaking than it is about writing.

John McWhorter:
Because writing came along only about 55 hundred years ago whereas speech has probably existed for about 150 thousand years – so if language had only existed for 24 hours then writing came along at about 11:07pm.
 

August 24, 2011

Interview with Chris Warmash, Publishing Director of Living Language www.LivingLanguage.com

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Mike Carruthers:
Mispronouncing foreign words is hardly a crime but it is interesting to discover the correct pronunciations of words many of us have been mispronouncing when we go to a restaurant. The big one is bruschetta.

Chris Warnash:
Because it’s got that “sch” in there and that looks like the German way of spelling “sch” but it’s actually pronounced “brusketta” but you can just say “brusketta”.
 

August 15, 2011

Interview with Mark Changizi, author of the book Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man

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Mike Carruthers:
Humans have been reading and writing for only a few thousand years a relatively short time in human history and yet we are incredibly good at it.

Mark Changizi:
If you were an alien and you watched us every day what humans do, you’d think that we evolved to read because we’re good at it - but we know we couldn’t possibly evolved to read. 
 

June 10, 2011

Interview with Joe Navarro, author of the book What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People

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Mike Carruthers:
To some degree you already know how to read body language - every human being does.

Joe Navarro:
Our species assesses for danger first and then assesses for hierarchy second and then we look for other things like emotions and so forth.
 

June 9, 2011

Interview with Joe Navarro, author of the book What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People

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Mike Carruthers:
Body language, if you learn to read it, can tell you a lot about someone.

Joe Navarro:
Our bodies reflect what we think, what we feel, and what we intend.

October 22, 2010

Interview with tom Dalzell, author of the book The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

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Mike Carruthers:
Slang has always been part of American language and culture.

Tom Dalzell:
One thing that slang often does is turn the world upside-down where good is bad and bad is good. So, something that's "ill" or "sick" or "bad" are all good.
 

October 4, 2010

Interview with Charles Seife, author of the book Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception

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Mike Carruthers:
You have been the victim of something called “proofiness”.

Charles Seife:
“Proofiness” is the art of using bogus mathematics to distort the truth rather than to bring it out.
 

September 24, 2010

Interview with Patricia Martin, author of the book Rengen: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer - and What It Means to Your Business

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Mike Carruthers:
Even though the economy continues to struggle a bit there is a cultural and creative renaissance going on in this country.

Patricia Martin:
Let's look at the enrollments in art school, up twenty-five to forty percent depending upon the school - and that's compared to ten years ago. More students are applying to art schools than they are business schools, today.
 

September 10, 2010

Interview with Meryl Runion, author of the book How to Use Power Phrases to Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say, & Get What You Want

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Mike Carruthers:
When you're talking to people, using the right phrases at the right time can make you a powerful communicator.

Meryl Runion:
One of my favorite power phrases is one that someone shared with me at a seminar I was teaching. It was a customer service situation and someone was being very hostile towards her.