From ‘turkey trot’ to ‘going cold turkey,’ the centerpiece to many Thanksgiving dinners has lent its name to many things. But it also borrowed its name from elsewhere.
When overrused phrases reach the point of aggravation, they become cliches.
yongyuan/iStock/Getty Images Plus
A scholar of spelling bees explains why Zaila Avant-garde’s victory at the National Scripps Spelling Bee is significant from a historical perspective.
Protesters wave a flag at Parliament Hill in Ottawa at a “Cancel Canada Day” protest in response to the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at Indian Residential Schools. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle
THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle
Recent research on Danish shows that not only is it hard for Danish children to learn their mother tongue, but adult Danes use their native language differently than speakers of other languages.
Man holds sign reading ‘wer ist hier der COVIDIOT’ which means ‘who is the COVIDIOT here?’ at a protest against pandemic restrictions in March, 2021.
(Kajetan Sumila/Unsplash)
As the effects of the pandemic intensify, so does the importance of the choice of language.
Humans are constantly changing our languages in terms of sounds, words, meanings, and grammar, so much so that it becomes increasingly difficult to understand our own distant relatives across time and space.
(Unsplash/Lucrezia Carnelos)
Communication between people would be very difficult, if not impossible, without discursive memory. Our memories allow us to understand each other or to experience irreconcilable differences.
(Shutterstock)
Because of context and history, some words and phrases carry a heavy burden with them. Their mere mention can bring back painful memories and problematic situations.
Using machine learning to study over 85 million YouTube comments, a research team has, for the first time, identified linguistic differences among cable news viewers.
The coronavirus forced the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary to break with tradition.
Illustration by Anurag Papolu/The Conversation; dictionary photo by Spauln via Getty Images and model of COVID-19 by fpm/iStock via Getty Images
Updates to the Oxford English Dictionary provide a fascinating glimpse into how language changes in the face of rapid and unprecedented social and economic disruption.
Every known culture on Earth has special words for kids to call their parents.
XiXinXing via Getty Images
One anthropologist found 1,072 similar words for ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ in the world’s languages. It turns out a mix of biology, culture and encouragement from parents explains this phenomenon.
Depending on where you’re from, you say words like ‘basil’ a specific way.
Leonie Broekstra/Shutterstock.com
Grant abstracts with more words, more complex language and more storytelling tend to earn more money – even if that’s not exactly what funders say they’d want.
PhD student, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Research Unit for Indigenous Language, School of Languages and Linguistics, The University of Melbourne
Affiliate, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Postgraduate researcher, School of Languages and Linguistics, The University of Melbourne