Blasphemy is the act of showing irreverence or contempt for religious deities or beliefs.
And it’s in the news, as Muslims around the globe are protesting a blasphemous film. Should some ideas be off-limits for criticism? Can blasphemy be constructive? …
You’ve seen the Apple Geniuses.
They’re floating around in the Apple Store, helping customers, fixing problems, and making sales. Now it seems that a copy of Apple’s Genius guide has been leaked, with instructions on the language that Geniuses should …
How do mice communicate? By smell or facial expression?
Forget it. Some mice in Costa Rica communicate by singing, and these tiny sopranos have a lot to teach us about our own language gene. What’s the connection between squeaking and …
We like to think of ourselves as rational beings that can make decisions more or less free of bias.
But research shows that language can influence our perception in subtle ways — either for good or for bad. Even our …
How did language start?
It’s a difficult question, since language doesn’t leave fossils. But by getting experimental volunteers to act out concepts, Dr Nicolas Fay is building evidence for one of the major views on language origins. What can we …
Babies are fast learners when it comes to language.
New research reveals that they can distinguish speech sounds and understand the intentions of other speakers, before they’ve even learned how to talk. But how do you test a baby’s skills? …
A couple of recent studies seem to confirm what many fear: text abbreviations cause poor grammar and writing skills in tweens and teens.
Are we on the verge of a new Dark Age? Will the Internet render us incapable of …
Do you have trouble processing sentences?
Blame your brain. New research shows that we don’t evaluate every word when processing language — and this leads us into problems when confronted by ‘semantic illusions’.
Linguist Daniel Midgley reveals all on this …
Mother, father, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, and cousin.
Our words for family relations are so familiar to us that it’s hard to imagine them any other way. But other languages have some surprising …
You’ve heard of Stonehenge, but have you heard of Manhattanhenge?
Perhaps Carhenge would be more your style.
Either way, all these henges give us a look at how words get created. How many words get made this way? More than …
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