The Linguist Who Caught the Unabomber
For 17 years, the Unabomber was a ghost, but his most powerful weapon—a 35,000-word manifesto—became his undoing. This is the story of how FBI linguist James Fitzgerald deciphered the unique…
Tag: law
The Lost Art of Shorthand: A Language of Speed
Before audio recorders, a unique form of writing captured speech at the speed of thought. This article delves into the lost art of shorthand, exploring the clever linguistic principles behind…
The Linguistics of ‘Google It’: When Brands Become Verbs
Ever wonder how "Google" went from a company name to a common verb in our dictionary? This article explores the fascinating linguistic journey of brands that become household words, from…
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 between two interpretations: is the right to bear arms a…
Herein, Aforesaid, Notwithstanding: Why Legal Language Is a Language of Its Own
Have you ever felt lost reading a contract full of words like "aforesaid" and "notwithstanding"? This is "legalese," a unique linguistic fossil born from a historical mixture of Law French,…
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 new word to name the unspeakable. By combining the Greek…