It’s been a big year for singular they, but there’s more than one pronoun in town.
What invented pronouns have there been? How far back does singular they go? And why did some people kick up a fuss about …
Category: animal communication (page 1 of 4)
Artificial intelligence is everywhere, and that freaks some people out. But the real problem is that AIs may not be smart enough.
Whether you’re concerned about the future of human/computer interaction, or you just want a fun description of machine …
You might do nothing. You might do zilch. But if you do bugger all, you’re really doing the minimum.
But wait — how did the phrase bugger all become a negative, in the complete absence of any negative words?
There …
Even if we’re trying not to be the grammar police, we all have that internal voice that notices linguistic difference, and categorises people thereby.
How do we deal with that inner prescriptivist? How can we have linguistic discussions with grammar …
Bees: not just great pollinators; great communicators.
The dance of the European honeybee is one of the most famous methods of communication in the animal kingdom, and shows features that are very similar to human language.
But are bees losing …
Wait — you mean people are doing something new in English? They sure are.
It’s happening to the word wait, and it’s been spotted by famed sociolinguist Dr Sali Tagliamonte of the University of Toronto. Do you start sentences with …
There are some things so nice we say them twice. And when we do, we’re using reduplication.
But this handy device can handle a surprising range of functions in the world’s languages, and it can pop up in the …
Do you know where your data is?
Language researchers can learn a lot from publicly available internet data. But what are the ethical issues surrounding the collection and use of this information? What about data that comes from home assistants? Does it …
Other languages have good ideas too, you know.
Have you noticed something cool about another language, and wished English did that? Is there any feature of another language that you wish English had?
Daniel and Hedvig are engaging in a …
We’re on our customary mid-year hiatus, but Daniel’s still having a great time in the studio, taking your questions, playing tracks, and talking about whatever’s happening in the world of language.
We’re thinking of putting together a best-of for the …
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- CBAA Awards 2018: Best Radio Program — Talk
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- Talkley Award 2018
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