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K.I.S.S. your readers
Big words suck. Gargantuan expressions fail to fulfill your readership's expectations. See how small words win the day? Have you ever felt the need to use big words to sound more important or aut...
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Yolo and binge-watch added to online dictionary
Yolo, an acronym for 'you only live once', is among the latest new words added to the Oxford online dictionary. The phrase, along with 'adorbs' - meaning cute or adorable, and 'binge-watch' - which means to avidly watch something - has been added to oxforddictionaries.com. The website is a catalogue of current definitions of English words as they are used today.
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When Chinese children forget how to write
In China, it takes blood, sweat and months of studying dictionaries to become a Character Hero. Millions tune in every week to watch teenagers compete for the title. Character Hero is a Chinese-style spelling bee, but in this challenge, young contestants must write Chinese characters by hand. Every stroke, every dash must be in the correct spot.
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How languages evolve - Alex Gendler
Over the course of human history, thousands of languages have developed from what was once a much smaller number. How did we end up with so many? And how do we keep track of them all? Alex Gendler explains how linguists group languages into language families, demonstrating how these linguistic trees give us crucial insights into the past.
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+24 +1
Use of 'language of deceit' betrays scientific fraud
Diederik Stapel, the infamous "lying Dutchman" who in 2011 admitted to inventing the data in dozens of psychology research papers, unwittingly signalled his deceit through the language he used. As well as inflating the certainty surrounding his results, Stapel included more science-related terms to describe his methods when writing up his fraudulent "findings" than when describing genuine results.
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Our Use Of Little Words Can, Uh, Reveal Hidden Interests
When we talk, we focus on the "content" words — the ones that convey information. But the tiny words that tie our sentences together have a lot to say about power and relationships.
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69 Different Ways to Say Fuck, With Definitions
Here are 69 different ways to say fuck, excerpted from F**k: An Irreverent History of the F-Word, by Rufus Lodge, a successful and critically acclaimed author who lives in London under another name. Published today by HarperCollins. You can buy it here. It's funny.
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The Incredible Shrinking Planet
What happens when we bridge the geographic and linguistic gaps that have separated us for centuries?
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What's Wrong With "America's Ugliest Accent"
Gawker is running a competition, tournament style, to see which accent will be crowned "America's Ugliest." In the running are 16 cities in the US, and readers get to vote. As a linguist, I'm not so thrilled about it.
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How English became language of science
Two Norwegian scientists have won the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine - for work published in the English language. Historian of science Michael Gordin explains why they wrote in the language of Dickens and Twain rather than Ibsen and Hamsun.
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The people who want their language to disappear
It's not unusual to hear about attempts to save a disappearing language - but in one place in rural California, some Native Americans actually want their language to die out with them.
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Where Did Soul-Sucking Office-Speak Come From?
How did we get to the point where people are constantly spouting nonsense about "deliverables," "drill-down," "catch-up," "moving forward," and "quick wins"?
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Oh My God! Winston Churchill Received the First Ever Letter Containing “O.M.G.”
Winston Churchill is one of those preposterously outsized historical figures who seemed to be in the middle of every major event. Even before, as Prime Minister, he steeled the resolve of his people and faced down the Third Reich juggernaut; even before he loudly warned of the Nazi menace before it was polite to do so; even before he was pilloried in the press for the disastrous Gallipoli invasion during WWI, Churchill was a famous and controversial figure.
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Content Marketing Is Killing Our Most Important Words
Now that we’ve completely overused words like “ultimate” and “awesome” and “remarkable,” where do we go from there?
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Sweden Renames a Bunch of Birds to Make Sure No One Thinks They're Racist
Sweden’s Ornithological Society has changed the names of a bunch of birds because they were concerned that the old names sounded racist.
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No One Could See the Color Blue Until Modern Times
This isn't another story about that dress, or at least, not really. It's about the way that humans see the world, and how until we have a way to describe something, even something so fundamental as a color, we may not even notice that it's there.
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24 Brilliant New Words That Must Be Added To A Dictionary
The beautiful thing about language is that it changes to reflect the times. Sometimes we even have to coin our own words and phrases for new things!
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Can Dying Languages Be Saved?
It is a singular fate to be the last of one’s kind. That is the fate of the men and women, nearly all of them elderly, who are—like Marie Wilcox, of California; Gyani Maiya Sen, of Nepal; Verdena Parker, of Oregon; and Charlie Mungulda, of Australia—the last known speakers of a language: Wukchumni, Kusunda, Hupa, and Amurdag, respectively. But a few years ago, in Chile, I met Joubert Yanten Gomez, who told me he was “the world’s only speaker of Selk’nam.” He was twenty-one.
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The Vocabularist: Have we got the meaning of 'whistle-stop' right?
When we say David Cameron has a whistle-stop tour do we know the meaning, and does it matter?
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How to design a metaphor
The metaphor designer isn’t trying to make something beautiful. She wants to change your view on things. Here’s how. By Michael Erard
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