In the essay “'I'll Explain it to You': Lecturing and Listening,” Deborah Tannen explains that men and women communicate differently as they hold differing values and goals in conversation. She states that men use language to negociate status in public discourse and protect their independence, while women build rapport and establish interdependent relations. Due to these different goals, Tannen says, men and women interpret the actions of the other sex through differing lenses. The different perspectives then lead to misunderstandings and some conflict, according to Tannen.

Beginning her essay with four anecdotes, Tannen explains that a man lecturing a woman is the most obvious form that conversational differences take. Tannen notes the manner in which the lecturer, often a man, “is framed as superior in status and expertise” as the teacher, while the listening is considered to be a student. She says this imbalance often results from men having more information to impart and valuing “the position of center stage and the feeling of knowing more,” while women often downplay their expertise and listen to build rapport.

However, Tannen reveals that, even if a woman had expertise in an area, she would not necessarily have the spotlight. In relating yet another anecdote, Tannen explains the manner in which she gets support from other women when mentioning her occupation as a linguist, as the women ask Tannen questions about her occupation and often provide anecdotes that support her findings. Men, notes Tannen, tend to give her a lecture on language, challenge her, or change the subject when she mentions her work. Women provide support because they prefer giving others the spotlight, in expectation of later being given their own time to talk. Due to their emphasis on status, men often attempt to take the spotlight by lecturing, thusly establishing their own expertise, challenging her expertise in order to bring her down, or moving the conversation to something they know more about.

Tannen mentions an experiment conducted by a psychologist to determiner whether gender or expertise mattered more in dominance in conversations by setting up pairs of men, pairs of women, and mixed pairs. In some cases, the psychologist made certain participants 'experts' in the discussions by providing them information before hand. The results showed that the experts often talked more than the non-experts, except in the case of a woman expert paired with a male non-expert. Tannen notes that the female experts often showed more support to the male non-experts, acting “as if their expertise were something to hide.” The experiment also resulted in male and female experts controlling controlling conversations with female non-experts, but they failed to do so with male non-experts. The results, as Tannen interprets, show that women generally accord respect to the experts in a conversation, while men do not, instead opting to challenge the experts. If the experts successfully defend themselves, they may maintain their position, but they lose ground if they fail, observes Tannen. Tannen points out that despite the differences between men and women, a man challenges an expert out of respect, regardless of gender, and not out of resentment should the expert be female. She explains the inequality of treatment from the stylistic differences: “Most women lack experience in defending themselves against challenges, which they misinterpret as personal attacks on their credibility.” In another sense, however, men interpret a women's efforts to emphasize similarities and avoid showing off as evidence of insecurity or incompetence, “through the lens of status” as Tannen puts it.

Of course, men do not always dominate all discussions, as another study found out. Elizabeth Aries, the conductor of the study, explains that college women talked more than men, but the content differed: men “set the agenda by offering opinions, suggestions, and information”, while women “tended to react” by agreeing or disagreeing. In another study conducted by the same woman, the manner in which men and women spoke in homogeneous groups again revealed the differences in their communication styles. All-male discussion groups in the beginning established those who were best informed in various subjects as a means of determining status, notes Aries. Tannen divulged that men established camaraderie and their place in a hierarchical order, noting that knowledge in certain areas led to a higher status in the order. Thusly, she explains that men concern themselves more with “displaying knowledge and expertise” than women, due to their competitive natures. All-female discussion groups, on the other hand, spent time “gaining a closeness through more intimate self-revelation,” according to Aries. The women spent time to getting to know each other by relating their personal experiences. Like men, Tannen explains, the women established relationships, but they were more concerned with their “place in a network of intimate connections.”

At the end, Tannen points that both men and women are frustrated with all the problems that their stylistic differences causes: men do not wish to be lecturing all the time, and women do not wish to be listening all the time. By understanding and occasionally using the style of the other gender, Tannen argues, men and women can break the habits associated with their respective style.

You are The Wheel of Fortune

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

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In our modern society, advertising is everywhere. On television we hear slogans of this sort: “This soap is guaranteed to help make your dishes virtually spotless!” “This car comes with 0% APR financing for five years on approved credit!” “Come shop at our bookstore’s National Reading Day sale, when everything is up to 50% off!” Surely, all people must have heard variations of the above lines countless slogans in the past. What one might not know, however, is that those annoying slogans in every commercial serve a dark, sinister purpose: to get one to buy the advertised products. The theoretical examples used before go by the label of “weasel words” which was coined by William Lutz in his essay “With These Words, I can Sell You Anything”. He defined weasel words as words that “appear to say one thing when in fact they say the opposite or nothing at all.” Weasel words take on numerous forms and appear in the grand majority of commercials.
    For example, a commercial for John West red salmon uses weasel words. A group of bears are at the edge of a river catching salmon in a tranquil scene. The narrator begins to describe the scene as the camera zoom in on one of the bears: “At the river mouth, bears catch the tastiest, most tender salmon.” A man wearing the clothing of salmon fishermen runs screaming into the scene at one of the bears – who just caught a salmon – as the narrator continues: “Which is exactly what we at John West want.” The man tackles the bear, but it punches him off and stands on its hind legs. The two begin to trade blows and the bear roundhouse kicks the man in the crotch and strikes at his leg. Then the man speaks out in a presumably Australian accent as he hops on one foot and points up at the sky: “Oh, look, an eagle!” The bear looks up into the sky, but is kicked in the crotch, which causes it to scream in pain and hold its crotch. The man grabs the salmon as the camera changes angle, displaying a can of John West Red Salmon on a log. The narrator finishes the commercial as the man walks toward the viewer: “John West endure (sic) the worst to bring you the best.”
    One category of weasel words used in the commercial just described would be subjective adjectives. Though Lutz does not explain the overall concept, he does go over a specific examples: “By the way,, what does 'fast' mean? Ten minutes, one hour, one day? What is fast to one person can be very slow to another.” “Fast”, like the words “tastiest”, “most tender”, “the worst”, and “the best” in the article, all rely on the viewer's subjective judgment, which will vary when compared to another's. Since most adjectives cannot be objectively measured like height or weight, the advertisers are not liable if one were to, say, find that the salmon tasted bad.
    The second category would be distracting imagery. Though the category is not a type of weasel word usage in the sense of using actual words, it plays off the words that are spoken or written. Lutz touches on the subject in a tangent: “Always ask yourself what the ad is really saying. When you see ads on television, don't be misled by the pictures, the visual images.” The comedic imagery of a man fighting a bear added to the narrator's claims of John West going through “the worst to bring” the viewer “the best” salmon. Yet the fight also distracts one from the lack of verifiable information about the red salmon, such as when they are caught, where they are sold, etc. Finally, the imagery adds to the memorability of the commercial, and thus that of the company and the product, which makes it more likely for one to bu y a can of red salmon should they see it at the supermarket.