Linguistics

The Grammar of Nicknames

Ever wonder why William becomes Bill, but not Willam? Or how a Russian Aleksandr affectionately becomes Sashenka? Nicknames follow a…

4 weeks ago

The Language of Scent

We can recall scents with startling clarity, yet we struggle to describe them, a phenomenon known as the olfactory-verbal gap.…

4 weeks ago

Mapping the Land with Language

Imagine a world without 'left' or 'right,' where every instruction and description is given in cardinal directions. For speakers of…

4 weeks ago

The Comma That Rules a Nation

The U.S. Second Amendment's meaning hinges on a single, hotly debated comma. This grammatical ambiguity has fueled a centuries-long battle…

4 weeks ago

How Your Brain Reads This Sentence

The seemingly simple act of reading this sentence is a neurological miracle, a high-speed dance between your eyes and your…

4 weeks ago

The Language of Two Souls: Michif

Discover Michif, one of the world's most unique mixed languages, spoken by the Métis people. A fascinating blend of French…

4 weeks ago

The Grammar of Swearing

Far from being linguistic sludge, swearing is a surprisingly sophisticated system that follows its own intricate grammatical rules. Profanity is…

4 weeks ago

The Press That Froze Language

The invention of the printing press was a revolution not just for knowledge, but for language itself. Before Gutenberg, language…

4 weeks ago

How Dictionaries Decide Who Lives and Who Dies

Ever wonder how words like "rizz" become official while others fade away into obscurity? This post goes behind the scenes…

4 weeks ago

Why You Can’t Just “Count” in Thai

Ever tried to say "two dogs" in Thai and been corrected? That's because you can't just count nouns; you need…

4 weeks ago

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