In today's show, we cover whether you should say you talked to someone or talked with someone.
In an e-mail message, Kevin B. wrote, “I always hear talk show hosts say ‘It was nice talking to you....’ This (to me) sounds wrong, as if the person the host was speaking with was sitting there.... Shouldn’t it be ‘It was nice talking with you...’?. The use of the word ‘to’ instead of ‘with’ sounds directional, but the conversation was bi-directional.”
It’s true that the phrase “talk with someone” clearly refers to a two-way (or many-way) conversation. Still, “talk to someone” doesn’t rule out a two-way conversation. Any number of things could be happening while you’re “talking to” someone that you don’t mention, including that the person might be talking back to you. A Google search turns up many hits for strings like “I talked with them and they said”, but it also does for strings like “I talked to them and they said”, which indicates that many writers don’t interpret “talk to” to exclude a two-way conversation.
- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/talk-with-versus-talk-to#sthash.YmDUI3Vq.dpuf