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I love the way that people talk online. And on a good day, I genuinely think the internet has made people funnier and more creative. For instance, take this fairly anodyne post on X from 2023: “Financially, whatever happened in July can’t happen again.” For whatever reason, the people of the internet saw one man’s budgeting struggles as a blank template for their own posts, which got stranger and more ornate as they went on—until we reached what, for me, was the post of the year: “What happened to my ankles tonight mosquitologically can never happen again.”

“Mosquitologically”—it’s so good. Over and over, we come up with amazing things to say. That is why I felt moved earlier this year to write a defense of what some call “brain rot” language, a type of internet-inflected speech full of grammatical oddities and references to memes. I called it both mind-numbing and irresistible; when I talk the way that people talk online, I feel a little dumb, but also funny and current. Sometimes, these novel internet phrases—it’s giving; if you even care—are the best way to express what I’m thinking, and so it would be counterproductive and masochistic not to use them.

But long before the internet, there was spoken slang, the result of various cultures’ and identity groups’ innovations. This type of language originated in the margins, my colleague Caleb Madison wrote. In 14th-to-17th-century England, many people were pushed to the fringes of society as the country transitioned to capitalism. Over time, they “developed a secret, colorful, and ephemeral cant” to allow them to speak freely in front of law enforcement or rival groups. Throughout The Atlantic’s history, writers have kept a close eye on American slang; sometimes, they’ve fretted about it. An un-bylined piece from a 1912 issue bemoaned the state of American conversation and the laziness of “canned language” (apparently too many people were saying “It is a benediction to know him” at the time). Similarly, last year, the writer Dan Brooks argued that the internet is awash in “empty slang,” and that the country is facing a “language crisis.”

The Brooks story distinguished between valuable slang and useless slang, a distinction that also came up in another un-bylined essay, titled just “Slang,” from 1893. The writer posited that people use slang “whenever one’s own vocabulary falls short of the demands of one’s thought.” They argued that good slang replaces “inadequate” existing words, while bad slang is meaningless. Good slang is valuable, in the end, because it solves a problem—“Every new word which has a new meaning of its own, and is not a vain duplicate or pedantic substitute for a sufficient old one, enriches the language.”

This is not to say that all linguistic innovation should receive a warm welcome. Over the years, The Atlantic has also covered plenty of bad slang and uninspired turns of phrase, of which the internet has produced oodles. In a 2014 issue of this magazine, the writer Britt Peterson unpacked the linguistics of “LOLspeak,” a formerly common internet dialect that has thankfully fallen out of favor in the years since. It originated from “I Can Has Cheezburger?” cat memes—a relic from a simpler and cringier time in online history. LOLSpeak was “meant to sound like the twisted language inside a cat’s brain,” Peterson wrote, but “ended up resembling a down-South baby talk with some very strange characteristics, including deliberate misspellings (teh, ennyfing), unique verb forms (gotted, can haz), and word reduplication (fastfastfast).” The rise of social media in the mid-2010s led to all sorts of experiments like this (remember the “Because Internet” phenomenon?), many of which were similarly so annoying that they couldn’t possibly last.

It’s very obvious to say that language is always evolving, whether through misunderstanding or appropriation or relentless posting. But not all change lasts. We keep throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, and what usually does are the words and phrases that are instantly intelligible, useful, and simply funny. “Mosquitologically”: Why didn’t we have a word for that?

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As a rule, I avoid social and professional dinners. Not because I’m anti-social or don’t like food; quite the opposite. It’s because the conversations are usually lengthy, superficial, and tedious. Recently, however, my wife and I attended a dinner with several other long-married couples that turned out to be the most fascinating get-together we’ve experienced in a long time. The hostess, whom we had met only once before, opened the evening with a few niceties, but then almost immediately posed this question to the couples present: “Have you ever had a major crisis in your marriage?”

Quite the icebreaker, right? Faced with that, you might think you’d be making your excuses and beating a hasty retreat. But first, keep in mind the social milieu: This dinner took place in Madrid, not Minneapolis. More to the point, the hostess introduced the topic with a rare degree of grace and skill: She did so in a way that communicated genuine curiosity about other people’s experience, and with warmth, humor, and love. Her question drew fascinating, candid, thoughtful responses—so, far from itching to leave, I found that the hours flew by (no small feat, given that many dinners in Madrid go past midnight).

The occasion left me thinking that most of us could learn a thing or two about how to participate in a conversation—even a delicate or difficult one—so that the exchange inspires joy and interest. Luckily, plenty of research exists that can show how to do just that.

[Read: Have the conversation before it’s too late]

Some people have an easier time with conversation than others. Extroverts in particular find social intercourse invigorating, whereas introverts typically experience it as taxing. Neuroscientists have offered an interesting explanation for this. For a 2011 paper in the journal Cognitive Neuroscience, researchers used electroencephalography to measure a form of brain activity, known as the P300 wave, when subjects were presented with human faces. They found that extroverts had higher P300 amplitudes than introverts, meaning that social stimuli grabbed their attention (an obvious precondition for, say, engaging energetically in conversation). The introverts showed less brain activity associated with attraction to, or interest in, the faces of potential interlocutors—so individuals of this type, we can reasonably assume, would be less primed for lively conversation.

Another group for whom conversations can be difficult is people on the autism spectrum, even if their autism is mild and they are very high-functioning. Experts in this field offer three explanations for this: a resistance to changing topics, a failure to ask follow-up questions, and a tendency to fixate on a particular topic to the exclusion of others.

One common problem with conversations is that we don’t understand one another as well as we think we do. Writing in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2011, five scholars showed that even among friends and spouses, people believe they understand the intended meaning of what others say 85 percent of the time, whereas the true figure for the reliability of their comprehension is 44 percent. As the researchers note, a query as innocent as “What have you been up to?” could convey genuine interest, annoyance at the other person’s lateness, or suspicion about what they’ve been doing. This instability of meaning might be because of tonal ambiguity or because people actually don’t listen to one another well enough. In one recent experiment in which subjects were assigned the task of getting to know someone, a conversational partner was in fact not listening to the other person for 24 percent of the interaction.

[Listen: Best of How To: Make small talk]

Arguably, the foremost reason that conversations are difficult is because we don’t prepare for them or work to get better at them. This is the argument of my Harvard colleague Alison Wood Brooks (no relation), whose new book, Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves, follows decades of research on how we interact with people, and how to do it better and more enjoyably. As Brooks shows, people generally spend more time thinking about what they will wear to a dinner party than what they will talk about. Researchers have found that, laziness aside, this insouciance about conversation is because 50 percent believe that thinking about topics in advance will make a conversation feel forced and artificial; only 12 percent of people think such mental preparation will enhance the experience.

Brooks helpfully lays out four research-backed principles for conducting a strong and enjoyable conversation, for which she provides a mnemonic device called, appropriately enough, TALK.

T is for topics.
Before you go into a conversation, think of a few subjects that you’d like to discuss with your partners. This no doubt was on the mind of our hostess in Madrid. She was well aware that her guests shared her values and beliefs about marriage, and almost certainly weighed the risks beforehand of launching a delicate topic. Her icebreaker was not spontaneous but premeditated, which—far from making the gambit awkward—raised the level of trust around the table.

This tactic is appropriate for settings other than dinner parties. I typically write down significant questions that I want to ask my wife. Try to keep a running list of topics that would be good when talking with various significant people in your life. You might use a prepared question as a good reason for a call or visit.

A is for asking.
Obviously, a stiff interrogation does not make for a great conversation. My young-adult students commonly complain that this mode of questioning is the only way their parents communicate with them, which suggests that some parents get stuck in a pattern dating from when their children were little and have not developed a relationship with them as mature adults. That is a particular generational and perhaps intra-familial problem. But as a rule, a conversation without questions is unrewarding—it’s no fun to talk with someone who seems totally incurious.

The difference is that good questioning requires deep listening. When you’re genuinely focused on what the other person is saying, follow-up questions come naturally. In contrast, when listening means nothing more than waiting to talk—so often the case in my world of academia—follow-up questions are either nonexistent or pro forma.

L is for levity.
Brooks is a big proponent of humor, because it makes conversations fun. This doesn’t mean that you need to join an improv-comedy troupe. In fact, successful humor rarely means telling jokes; it means maintaining a “good humor”: a lightness and a gentle wit, which keep things from being too heavy and serious. We might think of laughter more as a social lubricant than a response to a punch line. Indeed, in one study, researchers found that only 10 to 15 percent of laughter in a conversation was responding to something actually humorous.

An easy way to maintain this type of good humor is simply by smiling—as much for your own benefit as your conversational partners’. Psychologists have long known that when we smile, it can raise our own mood. Moreover, good humor transmitted with a smile has been shown to be contagious in interactions; a person will tend to take the emotional cue of a sympathetic smiling face and feel happier themselves. As you get ready for your next dinner party, try smiling in the mirror while putting on your tie or makeup.

K is for kindness.
This is probably the most important ingredient in a good conversation. You might think of it as generosity, because it involves thinking about what the other person in a conversation needs and then giving it. As Brooks notes, this might be encouragement, hard feedback, new ideas, a quick laugh, a sounding board, challenging questions, or just a break. But it always means focusing primarily on the other person, rather than on yourself.

Perhaps that sounds exhausting or unenjoyable. Quite the contrary. As many studies have found, using your resources for others tends to promote greater happiness than using them on yourself. This doesn’t have to be limited to material resources, of course—in fact, your attention may be the most valuable thing you can share at any given moment.

[Arthur C. Brooks: The benefit of doing things you’re bad at]

One last thing to keep in mind about having better conversations: At our Madrid dinner party, the main ingredient of the sparkling exchange was its depth. The reason I shy away from dinners in general is their shallowness, their focus on topics of no true significance, the kind of encounter that simply passes the time innocuously, with no real investment or risk. I don’t care about your new golf clubs. Life is short; go deep or go home, I say.

Am I a weirdo, to hold this attitude? The science says not. A 2010 study in the journal Psychological Science found that the higher the percentage of conversation that is small talk, the lower the participants’ well-being, whereas the higher the percentage of substantive topics, the higher the well-being.

So go ahead: Invite us over and ask about our marriage. Mrs. Brooks and I will happily stay past midnight.

From inside the room, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearings felt at times more like an awards show than a job interview. While the health-secretary nominee testified, his fans in the audience hooted and hollered in support. Even a five-minute bathroom break was punctuated by a standing ovation from spectators and cheers of “We love you, Bobby!” There were some detractors as well—one protester was ushered out after screaming “He lies!” and interrupting the proceedings—but they were dramatically outnumbered by people wearing Make America Healthy Again T-shirts and Confirm RFK Jr. hats.

The MAHA faithful have plenty of reason to be excited. If confirmed, RFK Jr. would oversee an agency that manages nearly $2 trillion, with the authority to remake public health in his image. “He just represents the exact opposite of all these establishment agencies,” Brandon Matlack, a 34-year-old who worked on Kennedy’s presidential campaign, told me on Wednesday. We chatted as he waited in a line of more than 150 people that snaked down a flight of stairs—all of whom were hoping to get a seat for the hearing. Many of them were relegated to an overflow room.

Of course, Matlack and other RFK Jr. fans could be in for a letdown. Whether Kennedy will actually be confirmed as health secretary is still up in the air. There was less raucous cheering during the hearing on Thursday, as Kennedy faced tough questions from Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, whose vote could be decisive in determining whether Kennedy gets confirmed. But the realization of RFK Jr.’s vision for health care in America may not hinge on his confirmation. The MAHA movement has turned the issue of chronic disease into such a potent political talking point that people like Matlack are willing to trek from Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C., just to support Kennedy. Politicians across the country are hearing from self-proclaimed “MAHA moms” (and likely some dads too) urging them to enact reforms. They’re starting to listen.

Kennedy is best known as an anti-vaccine activist who spreads conspiracy theories. His more outlandish ideas are shared by some MAHA supporters, but the movement itself is primarily oriented around improving America’s diet and the health problems it causes us. Some of the ways MAHA wants to go about that, such as pressuring food companies to not use seed oils, are not exactly scientific; others do have some research behind them. Consider artificial food dyes, a major MAHA rallying cry. Multiple food dyes have been shown in animal studies to be carcinogenic. And although a candy-corn aficionado likely isn’t going to die from the product’s red dye, the additive is effectively banned in the European Union. (Kennedy claims that food dyes are driving down America’s life expectancy. There’s no evidence directly linking food dyes to declining human life expectancy, though one study did show that they cut short the life of fruit flies.)

Until recently, concerns over food additives, such as artificial dyes, were the domain of Democrats. In 2023, California became the first state in the nation to ban certain food additives: red dye 3, potassium bromate, brominated vegetable oil, and propylparaben. But now food-additive bans are being proposed in Donald Trump country, including West Virginia, Arkansas, and Kentucky. Some of the efforts, such as the Make Arkansas Healthy Again Act, are an explicit attempt to enact Kennedy’s agenda.

In other states, something a bit more Schoolhouse Rock is happening: The purported dangers of food ingredients are riling up Americans, who are then going to their lawmakers seeking change. Eric Brooks, a Republican state legislator in West Virginia, told me that he decided to copy California’s food-additive bill after being prodded by a constituent. “I said, Well, I don’t normally look out West, especially out to California, for policy ideas, to be honest with you,” he told me. “But once I had done the research and I saw the validity of the issue, I said, Okay.” Although his bill, which was first introduced in January 2024, did not move forward in the previous legislative session because, in his words, “there were bigger fish to fry,” Brooks hopes the national interest coming from the MAHA movement will motivate West Virginia legislators to take another look at the proposal.

Other red-state efforts to follow California’s lead have similarly not yet been passed into law, but the fact that the bills have been introduced at all signifies how motivated Republicans are on the topic. The MAHA moms may be enough to propel Kennedy to the job of health secretary. One Republican, Senator Jim Banks of Indiana, told Kennedy on Thursday that he plans to vote to confirm him because doing anything else “would be thumbing my nose at that movement.” Republicans are not only introducing bills to ban food additives; they’re also taking up Kennedy’s other MAHA priorities. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently asked the federal government for permission to forbid food-stamp recipients in her state from using their benefits to buy junk food—a policy Kennedy has repeatedly called for.

Over the past two days, senators seemed shocked at just how loyal a following Kennedy has amassed. One pejoratively called him a prophet. MAHA believers I spoke with made clear that they want RFK Jr.—and only RFK Jr.—to lead this movement. Vani Hari, a MAHA influencer who goes by “Food Babe” on Instagram, told me that, if Kennedy fails to be confirmed, there “will be an uprising like you have never seen.”

But at this point, it seems that the movement could live on even without Kennedy. On Wednesday, the Heritage Foundation hosted a press gaggle with MAHA surrogates. Heritage, an intellectual home of the modern conservative movement, is now praising the banning of food dyes. This is the same pro-business think tank that a decade ago warned that should the FDA ban partially hydrogenated oils, trans fats that were contributing to heart attacks, the agency “would be taking away choices,” “disrespecting” Americans’ autonomy, and mounting “an attack on dietary decisions.”

Republicans have generally been a bulwark for the food industry against policies that could hurt its bottom line. Democrats and Republicans in Washington today seem more aligned on food issues than ever before. “When you have members on both sides of the aisle whose constituencies are now extremely interested in understanding fully what’s in their food products, it does shift the game a bit,” Brandon Lipps, a food lobbyist and a former USDA official under Trump, told me. After all, even Bernie Sanders, despite chastising Kennedy multiple times during this week’s confirmation hearings, professed his support for aspects of the MAHA movement. “I agree with you,” Sanders told Kennedy on Thursday, that America needs “a revolution in the nature of food.” During the same hearing, Cassidy said that he is struggling with Kennedy’s candidacy because, despite their deep disagreements on vaccine policy, on “ultra-processed foods, obesity, we are simpatico. We are completely aligned.”

Although MAHA has shown itself to be a unifying message, the real test will come down to the brass tacks of any political movement: passing actual legislation. How willing lawmakers—especially those with pro-business proclivities—will be to buck the status quo remains to be seen. Politicians have proved eager to speak out against ultra-processed foods; in that sense, MAHA is winning. But policy victories may still be a ways off.