As student teachers and new teachers enter the rich, historied culture of their English departments, they are listening and looking intently for cues about how they fit in. Sadly, recent scholarship indicates that many teachers never actually find a satisfactory fit. According to Richard Ingersoll, almost 50% of new teachers quit before they reach their sixth year of teaching. Susan M. Kardos and Susan Moore Johnson explain that this severe attrition may be due to the fact that new teachers often experience their school culture as both unsupportive of newcomers and lacking a sense of collective responsibility. Given these troubling reports, an examination of teachers' language with newcomers becomes particularly important. In this article, the author discusses how to use collegial language to support novices. She encourages all teachers who consider themselves experienced to take seriously the opportunities they have through their daily use of language to create friendly and encouraging transitions for the less-experienced members of their communities, whether teachers or parents. (Contains 1 note.)