Liz Marasco is a linguist, having earned her MA in Linguistics from CU Boulder, and currently serves as Program Manager at 4Degre.es. Yes, 4Degre.es is my sponsor, but they did not pay me to do this show.

Zach Knaus is the head honcho at 4Degre.es, and a longtime friend. So he approached me about having Liz on my show because he thought her work was interesting, unique, and worthy of exploration. To get me acquainted with her, he sent me her Ted Talk, titled “How We Say No Matters.” Suffice to say, after watching this, I jumped at the chance to connect with Liz.

In addition to being an engaging public speaker, Liz provided me fascinating insight into the many ways (often unconsciously) we seek affiliation with each other through our communication choices. Her talk touched on nonverbal communication, how to give a dispreferred response that allows the other person to save face, and, notably, the #MeToo movement.

And on this week’s show, we delve deeper into all of those subjects and more. We touch on police brutality, the tribalism of our current political climate, why she got started in politics at all, and most exciting for me, we get to nerd it up about language theory. Liz is a talented professional, and I’m proud to feature her work on the show.

You can find Liz on Twitter, and at her own website.

This episode is available for download on iTunes, streaming on Stitcher, or at the Jon of All Trades homepage.

The Jon of All Trades Podcast is a proud member of the Denver Podcast Network.

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