A few stolen minutes out of your day to talk words and communication, because our daily lives are surrounded by the evolution and influence of words. Forget the grammar police. There is so much more to this conversation.
A few stolen minutes out of your day to talk words and communication, because our daily lives are surrounded by the evolution and influence of words. Forget the grammar police. There is so much more to this conversation.
A few stolen minutes out of your day to talk words and communication, because our daily lives are surrounded by the evolution and influence of words. Forget the grammar police. There is so much more to this conversation.
A few stolen minutes out of your day to talk words and communication, because Ben Franklin and Kurt Cobain both influenced our modern English language, spelling memes deserve to be debunked, and our daily lives are surrounded by the evolution of and the influence of words.
Forget the grammar police. There is so much more to this conversation.
Oh, it feels so good to be back. The Words You Should Know podcast is back!
Hi there. It’s Kris. How’s everyone doing? I hope you and your words are well, and I do say that to every single one of you, no matter whether you consider yourself a “writer” quote, unquote, or not. We all connect with each other with our words every single day. They matter. But this year has been… well… I don’t know the words to finish that sentence, and that says something considering the focus of this podcast and what I do with every single day of my life.
So much has had our attention this year that we didn’t see coming, but you know what? Our words are in the spotlight too. They always have been, but… wow…
I know, it’s hard to record a podcast about language and communications when I’m a bit speechless, but here we go. More
Why do I call this the “Words You Should Know” podcast? It’s not a lecture. The whole idea of grammar police annoys me. This is the podcast that reminds you that Ben Franklin and Kurt Cobain both influenced our modern English language, and that spelling memes deserve to be debunked. See past episodes for those details.
Today, let’s start with Franz Kafka, and if you’re thinking of the author of The Metamorphosis and having flashbacks to a story about a man transformed into a giant cockroach-like bug, your mind is in the right place. One of my favorite quotes from Kafka is, “Follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”
What are your most intense obsessions? It’s a good question to ask yourself isn’t it? And are you following them mercilessly?
People surround us. Words surround us. The words we use for people surround us. And things can get tricky.
We might fall into traps of not knowing better with some words, like “gypsy,” which is often considered a racial slur to people of the Roma population—along with the word “gyped,” as in “I was gyped,” which stems from this “gypsy” word. So, hint on that, it’s one you probably want to cut from your vocabulary.
I could go way, way deeper on language that offends—clearly—but what got me started on this concept of words for groups is the word “hipster.” Some words are cooler than cool, and this is one of them. Hipster. And is it related to hippie?
Hip hip hooray. Hip. Hep. Let’s get excited, folks. This is the Words You Should Know podcast, Season 3, Episode 5.
A few stolen minutes out of your day to talk words and communication, because Ben Franklin and Kurt Cobain both influenced our modern English language and spelling memes deserve to be debunked. Words. Language. Human communication. Everything begins there.
Norrie Epstein once said, “The best writing advice I ever received: facts are eloquent.” Oh how much I love this statement. It’s true in conversations, in books, in journalism, and anywhere words might take you. Sometimes, these facts are world changing. Sometimes, these facts are word-changing—or, at least in how you perceive certain uses of language.
Are you ready to dive in? I have two big questions for you today.
A few stolen minutes out of your day to talk words and communication. Let’s talk language tips for the curious or confused. Welcome to episode three of season three.
The Irish author Samuel Beckett once wrote, “Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” I love this idea, in talking about communication skills as well as so many other areas of life.
People can be so scared of failure or doing something incorrectly. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. But what can we achieve if we don’t try?
No matter how you’re using your words, in emails or essays, poetry or presentations, you’ve got to start somewhere. Maxwell Perkins, the book editor best known for the writers he discovered including Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, once said, “Just get it down on paper, and then we’ll see what to do about it.”
No matter what you’re writing or planning to say, it’s true, isn’t it? Just get it down. Just spit it out. Nothing can be carved into a masterpiece if you don’t even have the lump of clay to work with.
Being an English language and grammar pro isn’t a matter of what degrees you’ve earned or what witty pun you might have on your coffee mug. Oh, yes, I’m talking to you with your, “The past, the present, and the future walked into a bar. It was tense” mug. Sure, I love it. Looking to comfort a word-lover? “There, their, they’re.” (Okay, that one makes much more sense if you could see the different spellings).
But witty mug in hand or not, let’s keep working on our words, and let’s keep amusing ourselves and discovering their fascinating roots along the way.