Linguists have a lot of largely untested theories. Borrowing a tool from ecology, researchers built a model that didn’t look for one worldwide explanation.
It’s a linguistic battlefield out there.
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Each spin of the news cycle hits us with another ‘bombshell,’ while everything from free speech to race has been ‘weaponized.’ What’s the effect of being relentlessly exposed to metaphors of war?
In Wordslut, Amanda Montell deconstructs gendered language.
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The book promises to help reclaim language used against women, exploring the origins of gendered slurs. But its use of contemporary slang and lack of an index undermines its credibility.
Climate activists block the entrance to the Swiss bank UBS with a pile of coal in Basel, Switzerland earlier this summer. Climate protests are helping raise awareness about the ugliness of fossil fuels, and so too should the language we use.
(Georgios Kefalas/Keystone via AP)
If how we speak about the world we want to see is crucial in building support for climate change momentum, then what is visible and invisible, strange and normal, positive and negative, must change.
It’s the case of the missing ‘a.’
Nick Lehr/The Conversation via NASA
Armstrong always insisted that he said, ‘That’s one small step for a man.’ Yet everyone omits the ‘a’ when they repeat the quote. A linguist tries to get to the bottom of what happened.
Gestures and emoji don’t break down into smaller parts, nor do they easily combine into larger words or sentences.
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Instead of worrying that emoji is replacing competent language use, we can celebrate that emoji are creating a richer form of online communication that returns the features of gesture to language.
The idea of CRISPR as scissors ignores an entire ecosystem of moving parts that are crucial for understanding the awe-inspiring, crazy thing scientists are trying to do when they attempt gene editing.
Juggling Korean, English – and Konglish.
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Konglish is widely spoken in Korea but rather than celebrating it as one of a variety of Englishes used around the world, speakers are often frowned upon.
Franco-Moroccan author Leila Slimani (centre) with the president of the Goncourt prize, Bernard Pivot (third from right) and others at the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair.
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