Clear In vivid is sponsored by the Covley Foundation dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of humanity.

I'm Alan Alder and this is Clear In vivid conversations about connecting and communicating.

We use language, we're doing two things at once. We are conveying information, but we're also in a social relationship.

We're on speaking terms. If I say you could pass the guacamole, that would be awesome.

It's kind of odd proposition when you think about it. It would really be awesome.

Why not just say you're getting the damn guacamole? That's because you really want it.

If you don't want to be treating someone as if they're assert, you've got to choose our words to get the message across without signaling the wrong kind of social relationship.

That's Stephen Pinker in a conversation with me about conversation.

We originally planned to be in front of an audience of the 92nd Street, Y in New York, but instead our talk took place like so many other conversations these days on our computer screens.

We talked about talking, but also about Stephen's argument, which is controversial to some, that things in the world are getting by and large better and better.

I, and welcome to our conversation. I'm Alan Alda and Stephen Pinker is with me, not literally, but on the screen.

Stephen is a professor of psychology at Harvard, and he's filled our bookshelves and our minds with wonderful writing about who we are, why we're who we are, and what to do about it.

I guess you could say, maybe if it's characterized your writing, Stephen, it's great to be with you tonight.

Thank you for having me.

Last time we were together, I interviewed you 25 years ago on scientific American frontiers, but you're fascinating work with children and the way they develop language.

And since then you've broadened your reach of your perspective, a great deal.

You were telling me once about how we use euphemisms to tell me a little more about that.

I didn't, we didn't, we were interrupted by somebody and I never got the end of that. What, what, what did you mean by euphemisms?

So we use language. We're doing two things at once. We are conveying information, but we're also in a social relationship, we're on speaking terms.

And even though life forces us to discuss unpleasant subjects, because the way the cross wiring and the brain, any word brings to mind what refers to, what it refers to can be unpleasant.

And so you're kind of assaulting your conversational partner when you discuss emotionally fraught subjects, hitting our listener over the head with a, with a weapon.

We choose a euphemism that gets the idea across what simultaneously saying, I'm respecting your sensibilities.

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