This hour, we’ll talk with Zora O’Neill about how she immersed herself in the Middle East, mastered the language and broadened her worldview in the process. She writes about the experience in her memoir, “All Strangers Are Kin: Adventures in Arabic and the Arab World” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
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We’ll talk about how fictional foreign tongues add to their fantastical stories with David J. Peterson, author of “The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves, the Words Behind World-Building.”
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This hour, we’ll talk about common expressions and terms that may set off the language police with Ammon Shea, author of Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation
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This hour we’ll revisit our May talk with Mary Norris, who spent over three decades in The New Yorker’s copy department.
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If someone says that you’re “quite” attractive, are you offended or pleased? The answer depends on whether you hail from across the pond or not, says Erin Moore, author of “That’s Not English: Britishisms, Americanisms, and What Our English Says About Us.”
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