Archive for the ‘Podcast’ Category

Communication lab 5: separated by a common language [ 32:35 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Listen now to the latest programme, featuring linguistics lecturer Dr Lynne Murphy talking about the differences between UK and US English.

Further reading

Hear something you want to know more about? Here are some useful links.

Check out Lynne Murphy’s excellent blog Separated by a Common Language (and here’s how to spell ‘woa/whoa/woah’). You can also follow Lynne on Twitter @lynneguist.

Our post on giraffe bread tells how the tiger changed its stripes.

Rob got five, Lynne got seven – see how well you do in our new dictionary words quiz.

Meet the mucus troopers and the adultescents in Collins’ 2004 attempt to create a Living Dictionary.

If you too think that there’s a lot to be said for learning a word a day, try following @wordoftheday on Twitter.

Finally, if you’d like to keep track of those pesky Britishisms in American English, see Ben Yagoda’s blog Not One-Off Britishisms.

Getting what you want [ 40:12 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

40 minutes

Listen now to the latest programme, featuring communications expert Sharí Alexander: how to get what you want every time you speak.

Further reading

If you’d like to know more about any of the topics discussed, try these links.

Here are the BBC’s article on bionic contact lenses, the Guardian’s article on contact lenses containing LEDs and circuits and this release from the University of Washington.

Neurosciencemarketing.com has written about bad adjectives and Futurelab has written a counterpoint: when adjectives can be good.

And here’s John Naughton’s response to Mark Zuckerberg’s remarks about email and PCMag.com’s 9 reasons email is dead.

<< Read the January 2012 e-bulletin

Communication lab 3: difficult conversations [ 31:31 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

31 minutes

In this podcast, communication strategist David Levin joins Rob Ashton and Andy White to discuss strategies for approaching difficult conversations in the workplace.

Further reading

Did something in particular catch your interest? Here are some links to what we talked about.

Here’s Ben Yagoda’s article on Slate.com, The Britishism Invasion.

And some Census statistics showing the increase in Welsh speakers between 1991 and 2001.

David mentions having lived with the Zuni people in New Mexico. Here’s a page from the community’s own website, describing the language, and here’s a more analytical one from Omniglot.com.

The book by John Miller, to which David contributed, is QBQ! The Question Behind the Question and here’s a video of John in action.

David’s own book is Don’t Just Talk – Be Heard.

Communication lab 2: the secret life of pronouns [ 40:12 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

32 minutes

Rob Ashton and Andy White discuss the secret life of pronouns, proofreading tips and why the Freedom of Information Act may have taken all the excitement out of government communications.

Further reading

Hear something you want to know more about? Here are some useful links.

The Planet Word series with Stephen Fry has now finished, but it’s available to buy from Amazon and other bookshops. The episode that Rob was talking about is this one.

Professor James Pennebaker is a social psychologist based at the University of Texas. His book The Secret Life of Pronouns examines how and why pronouns and other forgettable words reveal so much about us.

The tool Rob mentions that analyses your writing is no longer available. But you can test your instincts about pronouns with this quiz and, if you’re on Twitter, have your personality analysed via your tweets.

Americans will be familiar with the Gettysburg address, but for any Brits wishing to brush up, Gregory Peck does a good job of reading it in this video.

Here’s the letter from the civil servant to the Guardian about the Freedom of Information Act making communication in the public sector ‘anodyne, benign and sterile’.

For more tips on proofreading, you might like this post on our blog. And to make sure you never forget to check the headings and furniture, see this collection of newspaper blunders. Finally, test your observational powers with this monkey business: how many times do the players wearing white pass the ball?

Communication lab 1: introduction [ 33:47 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

34 minutes

In this series of lively podcasts, Emphasis CEO and former scientist Rob Ashton puts language under the microscope, over a Bunsen burner and quite possibly into one of those things that looks like a high-tech salad spinner. Along with developer Andy White and a series of expert guests, he’ll be looking at the latest research into language, talking to expert guests and offering handy tips on how to make the most of our mother tongue.

In the first programme in the series, Rob and Andy discuss why writing matters more than ever, email pet hates and how to hack any sentence in 60 seconds.

Further reading

Here’s the article Rob refers to on the top five most annoying things you can do in an email, together with the results of our Twitter poll. And here’s a guide to writing good emails and cutting down on the number of unnecessary messages you receive.