The Phishing Lure: Linguistics of Scam Emails
"Kindly update your details immediately". It's a phrase that feels slightly off, and for good reason. This article breaks down the linguistic fingerprints of phishing…
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The Scribe’s Shortcut: A History of the Tilde (~)
That familiar squiggle, the tilde (~), is more than just a decoration on the Spanish 'ñ' or a casual emoji. From its origins as a…
The Grammar of ‘Went’: A Tale of Suppletion
Why isn't the past tense of "go" *goed*? The answer lies in a fascinating linguistic phenomenon called suppletion, where a word's inflected form is "substituted"…
AI’s Word Boundary Problem
To a computer, what exactly is a "word"? This seemingly simple question opens up the "word boundary problem", a surprisingly complex challenge in AI and…
The Vai Script: A Dreamed-Up Alphabet
In the 1830s, an illiterate Vai man in West Africa named Momolu Duwalu Bukele had a vivid dream where he was shown a book of…
Linguistic Passing: The Adopted Accent
Linguistic passing is the conscious act of adopting a new accent, not just to blend in, but to gain social capital or avoid prejudice. This…
The Grammar of “Chit-Chat”: Reduplication
From the simple 'bye-bye' in English to the Indonesian *wiku-wiku* (very fast), repeating words is a powerful tool found in languages worldwide. This morphological process,…
Apraxia: The Brain’s Broken Speech Plan
Apraxia of speech is a mysterious neurological condition where the brain knows the perfect word but can't send the right instructions to the mouth. Unlike…
Verner’s Law: The Glitch in the System
Grimm's Law neatly explains many sound changes from ancient Proto-Indo-European to Germanic languages, but puzzling exceptions remained a mystery for decades. This post explores Verner's…
The Wanderwort: Words That Travel the World
Explore the fascinating world of "Wanderwörter", or wandering words—terms for tradeable goods like tea, sugar, and silk that crossed entire language families with their cargo.…
The Verbal Compass: How Rivers Define Direction
Forget North and South. For speakers of some languages, the entire world is oriented not by a magnetic pole, but by the constant, unwavering flow…
Five-Star Lies: The Linguistics of Fake Reviews
Ever wondered if that glowing five-star review is too good to be true? This article delves into the fascinating world of forensic linguistics to reveal…
The Language of Avoidance: In-Law Tongues
Imagine having to learn a completely separate vocabulary just to be in the same room as your mother-in-law. For speakers of the Australian Aboriginal language…
The Tongue’s Blind Spots: Unmakeable Sounds
Your mouth is a remarkable instrument, capable of producing an astonishing range of sounds. But like any instrument, it has physical limits. This exploration of…
How to Own Without ‘Have’: The Be-Languages
In languages like English, you 'have' a book. But in Russian, Irish, or Turkish, you would say "to me there is a book". This fundamental…
The Dictionary’s Phantom: Hunting for Mountweazels
What if some of the words in your dictionary were complete fabrications, planted by clever editors as copyright traps? These phantom words, known as "mountweazels",…
The Unspoken Tutor: How Games Teach Language
How do video games teach us to navigate new worlds and master complex actions without a single word of instruction? They use a powerful, unspoken…
The Scribe’s Mistake: Errors in Medieval Texts
Before the printing press, every book was a handmade original, and every scribe made mistakes. Far from being mere blemishes, these scribal "bloopers" are a…
The Child Who Forgot to Speak: Childhood L1 Attrition
We often worry about losing a second language, but what happens when a child starts to forget their first? First-language attrition is the poignant phenomenon…
The Milliseconds Before You Speak
Before a single sound leaves your lips, your brain performs an incredible series of high-speed calculations. In just a few hundred milliseconds, it races from…