Let's double-click on the jargon execs use in earnings calls

Sep 17, 2024
Company leaders repurpose certain familiar words and phrases to create a narrative about how their businesses are doing.
People who use the term “economic moat” to describe a company’s competitive advantage may want to imitate billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has used the phrase for decades.
Tim Graham/Getty Images

People really hate the way we talk at work

Feb 27, 2020
Office-speak can be both annoying and convenient, said The Atlantic's Olga Khazan.
A London office building in 2013.
Oli Scarff/Getty Images

How one linguist is teaching "Game of Thrones" fans how to speak High Valyrian

Mar 13, 2019
Duolingo will help you brush up on your Spanish, French and, uh, High Valyrian and Klingon.
Daenerys Targaryen from "Game of Thrones." 
HBO

Can you copyright another group's language?

Dec 26, 2018
Sari Sharoni, an associate at the law firm Covington & Burling, joined us to discuss whether groups can legally prevent others from appropriating their language.
A poke dish prepared for a Food Network festival in New York City.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images for NYCWFF

How women landed the invisible work of social media labor

Jun 1, 2018
It can start with the language used in job descriptions.
Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images

The Supreme Court rejects rule banning offensive trademarks

Jun 20, 2017
SCOTUS says it is unconstitutional to reject trademarks because they use offensive terms like racial slurs.
A view of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

Berlin seeks German language teachers for refugee students

Nov 24, 2016
Germany has accepted about 240,000 refugees so far this year, and one way it is trying to help them adapt to their new culture is by teaching them German.
Teacher Susann Heida is in her first month teaching German to teenage refugee students at a Berlin public school. Students in her class come from Syrian, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Veronica Zaragovia

One man's mission to get 'comprised of' off Wikipedia

Feb 4, 2015
One editor has removed tens of thousands of one very specific error from the site.

Discovering hidden languages in centuries-old writing

Oct 1, 2014
The technology Michael Toth uses to find treasure in ancient manuscripts.
Pages out of The Archimedes Palimpsest, a medieval parchment manuscript, now consisting of 174 parchment folios.
Drs. Reviel Netz and Nigel Wilson