In his new book, Randall Munroe of xkcd fame takes the principles of clear communication to what feels like their furthest extent, but there’s a place for dense grammar in our theories and ideas.
During the 20th century, English accents began to pick up traits from the capital. In the west of Scotland, though, something different has been going on.
Much has been written about vocal fry in recent years, with the focus on what it is, where it comes from and what it means … at least when it comes to females who fry. What’s really going on here?
The idea that the Australian accent may be the product of drunkenness in early European settlers is wildly speculative. And yet it has gained international attention in the past week. Why?
The discovery that “Huh?” crops up in many languages may have won the researchers an Ig Nobel Prize. But they found much more than that in their search for the universals in language.
What’s in a name? Many words are arbitrary – there’s no reason a dog must be called a dog or a table must be called a table. Why do we tend to assume there’s a reason any object has its specific name?
What can a bunch of people grunting in a lab teach us about our capacity to create language systems? A lot about the gesture- or vocalization-based origins of language.