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+10 +4
America's Speech Patterns Uncovered
The Marchex Institute examines the speech patterns of Americans and ranks all 50 states on gabbiness, impatience and fast-talking.
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+30 +4
Is Bilingualism Really an Advantage?
1922, in “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,” the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” The words that we have at our disposal affect what we see—and the more words there are, the better our perception. When we learn to speak a different language, we learn to see a bigger world.
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+23 +3
Translation fails
Signs are meant to warn you about potential hazards or identify certain things but the task of translation may instead leave you crying from laughter or scratching your head in confusion.
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+23 +5
Bar Association Considers Striking ‘Honeys’ From the Courtroom
When Lori Rifkin asked the opposing lawyer to stop interrupting her while she questioned a potential witness, he replied: “Don’t raise your voice at me. It’s not becoming of a woman.”
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+32 +5
Whether You Say Freakin', Friggin', Or Frickin' Depends On Where You’re From
F-word substitutes vary by region.
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Sideways Dictionary
Sideways dictionary — it's like a dictionary, but using analogies instead of definitions. Use it as a tool for finding and sharing helpful analogies to explain technological ideas. Because if everyone understands technology better, we can make technology work better for everyone.
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+18 +3
Is There a Place in America Where People Speak Without Accents?
Newscasters and Stephen Colbert seem to think so.
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+36 +7
Lost Languages Discovered in One of the World's Oldest Continuously Run Libraries
The centuries-old texts were erased, and then written over, by monks at Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt
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+9 +1
What Shakespeare's English Sounded Like - and how we know
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+14 +4
‘Kill two birds with one stone’ in European languages
Did you know that the animal proverbially killed in the expression "kill two birds with one stone" differs from country to country? The map below shows the type of animal killed (birds are red,
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Christmas gift-bringers of Europe
Find out who brings Christmas gifts in France, Germany, Spain, and many other countries by looking at this neatly coloured map.
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+23 +4
‘Happy New Year’ in European languages
Learn how to wish a "Happy New Year" in German, French, Spanish, Italian and other languages with my neatly coloured map!
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+12 +2
“New Year’s resolution” in European languages
A New Year's resolution is a vow people make to themselves to change an undesired habit or behaviour. The following map shows what New Year's resolutions are called in European languages (different
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+20 +1
How countries around the world translated Trump
Countries around the globe struggled to come up with a good translation of Trump's vulgarity.
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+22 +3
Why Menu Translations Go Terribly Wrong
Toward a grand unified theory of hilarious and odd foreign-language menus.
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+22 +3
The Shallowness of Google Translate
The program uses state-of-the-art AI techniques, but simple tests show that it's a long way from real understanding.
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+27 +5
The Long Linguistic Journey to 'Dagnabbit'
This piece of pseudo-profanity is what's known as a taboo deformation—a word we say when we don't want to say the word.
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Take Part In A Word Association Study
Welcome to this study on word associations. On average, an adult knows about 40,000 words. As scientists studying language and memory we are interested in the nature or organization of this mental dictionary.
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+10 +2
Wax And Wane
Cocteau Twins
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You Can Tell A Lot About A Person Based on Their Slang for Vomit, Money or Semen
You don’t need a charm school tutorial to know that, in polite society, bodily fluids and money matters are off limits. But the way all of us unsophisticated yokels get around this directive is to talk in code about it amongst ourselves. By Seth Graves.
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