Today's Word—On Interviewing

Can we talk?

“The best talk is artless, the talk of people trying to reassure or comfort themselves, women in the sun, grouped around baby carriages, talking about their weeks in the hospital or the way meat has gone up, or men in saloons, talking to combat the loneliness everyone feels. The talk when you interview someone for a newspaper is usually premeditated and usually artificial.’
—Joseph Mitchell, from My Ears Are Bent, 1938. (Thanks to alert WORDster Doug Cummings)