One of my favorite sessions during Counselors Academy this past weekend (as it is every year) was Darryl Salerno’s English As a First Language. I am an English major, and take great pride in my grammar and spelling skills, but this session always does me in. As my friend Roger Friedensen says, “This is a great way to keep your ego in check.”
I created quite the stir on Saturday when I tweeted that “celibate” means “unmarried” and “forte” is actually pronounced “fort.” But my favorite is how do you pronounce “ghoti?” The answer is “fish.” You take the gh from enough (F), the o from women (I), and the ti from option (sh). Rather tongue in cheek, but it’s a great representation of our language.
For our weekly Inside PR podcast, Martin Waxman and I took a few minutes to talk to Darryl and I got the interview on film, with me behind the camera. Watch here for insights on the English language, as well as a couple of resources you can read and/or listen to in order to better understand the mistakes we make daily.