Semantics

The Chinese Room: Can a Machine Ever Understand?

John Searle's famous "Chinese Room" thought experiment poses a timeless challenge to the idea of a truly thinking machine. By…

3 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.…

3 weeks ago

From “Flinty” to “Foxy”: How the World of Wine Invented Its Own Language

From "tannic" to "terroir," the world of wine has invented a specialized language to describe complex sensory experiences that are…

3 weeks ago

Why Is This Shape “Bouba” and That One “Kiki”? The Surprising Science of Sound Symbolism

Have you ever wondered why a spiky shape just *feels* like a "Kiki" and a rounded one a "Bouba"? This…

3 weeks ago

The Syntax of Scent: Can We Ever Truly Describe Smells with Words?

Why can we describe a shade of blue with a dozen words, but struggle to articulate the scent of rain?…

3 weeks ago

The Euphemism Treadmill: Why We Can’t Stop Inventing New Words for Old Taboos

Ever wonder why we have a dozen words for the toilet? This is the "euphemism treadmill," a linguistic cycle where…

3 weeks ago

The Ghost in the Machine: How Linguists Teach Computers to Understand Ambiguity

Ever wonder how your phone knows you mean the band Queen, not a monarch? This post explores the linguistic challenge…

3 weeks ago

A Word to Name the Unspeakable: Raphael Lemkin and the Creation of “Genocide”

Discover the powerful story of Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer who witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust and created a…

3 weeks ago

Seeing Blue: How the Language You Speak Changes Your Perception of Color

Do you see the same "blue" as a Russian speaker, who has two distinct words for the color? The fascinating…

3 weeks ago

Polysemy in English: The Complexity of Word Meanings

Language is a fascinating and complex system of communication that is as diverse as the human race itself. It serves…

2 years ago

This website uses cookies.