'Would you be willing?': words to turn a conversation around (and those to avoid)

Choose your words carefully and you can get someone to change their mind, or see you in a new light

It's not what you say, it's how you say it - isn't it? According to language analysts, we may have this wrong. ''We are pushed and pulled around by language far more than we realise," says Elizabeth Stokoe, professor of social interaction at Loughborough University. Stokoe and her colleagues have analysed thousands of hours of recorded conversations, from customer services to mediation hotlines and police crisis negotiation. They discovered that certain words or phrases have the power to change the course of a conversation.

Some of these words are surprising, and go against what we've been taught to believe. (For example, in a study of conversations between doctors and patients, evidence showed that doctors who listed "options" rather than recommended "best-interest" solutions, got a better response, despite the suggestion from hospital guidelines to talk about the best interests of the patient.) But, from conversation analysts such as Stokoe to FBI negotiators and communication coaches, we're learning which words are likely to placate or persuade us. Here are some of the biggest dos and don'ts.