AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: a special report about the linguistic challenges that health care workers face in the United States as a result of the nation growing immigrant population. RS: A recent study found...

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster, meet the modals! RS: Modals are words like can, could, will, would, may, might, and must. The list goes on. And they can be tricky to learn. AA: We get more of an introduction fro...

AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster, some whimsy to liven up your vocabulary! RS: Slangman David Burke brings us some words and phrases that, in most cases, have been around a long time, and are just plain fun to say....

AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster, we call on our old friend Grammar Lady, Mary Newton Bruder, to help us answer some listener mail. RS: We start with a question from Kim in Osaka, Japan. She would like to know the...

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster -- etymology meets entomology! The new movie Spider-Man inspired us to untangle some spider-related expressions. RS: Meet a real spider man, not the comic book superhero. Al York i...

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster -- how to make a request, as in, Could you help us out? RS: That's what we asked our friend Lida Baker. She teaches in the American Language Center at the University of California...

AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster -- the language of persuasion, from an expert. RS: Eric Knowles is a social psychologist at the University of Arkansas. He heads a laboratory group that recently held a Symposium on...

AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster -- advice for battling weasels of a wordy sort. RS: Weasels are small, nasty animals. Their reputation gives us slang expressions like weasel words -- language thats deceptive or ev...

AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster -- with the remodeling of the VOA News Now schedule, our thoughts turn to construction-related slang. Or, more precisely, words related to construction that have other meanings in s...

AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: Has the word minority outgrown its usefulness? RS: Minority means less than half. In the United States, members of non-European racial and ethnic groups are generally referred to a...