The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has commissioned all Shakespeare’s plays to be translated into contemporary English.
But how does one go about updating the words of the Bard? Does this task belong to playwrights, or to linguists?
Linguist Daniel Midgley speaks …
Shakespeare’s plays have been with us for 400 years. Is it time for an update?
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has commissioned all the Bard’s plays to be translated into contemporary English. How will this work? And what’s the reaction?
Oregon …
Did the Australian accent appear as a result of drunkenness?
Is texting a sign of declining literacy?
Is business jargon killing English?
Of course not. It’s rubbish. All of it. But when bad linguistics comes to town, few can resist …
You have questions, and we have answers.
But in the process we find out more about how English works, and how it got to be the way it is.
Daniel and Ben empty out the mailbag on this episode of …
For babies, learning language seems like child’s play.
But new research is showing us that there’s a lot going on in there, with contributions from brain, body, and memory. How does it all work?
Linguist Daniel Midgley bundles it all …
A picture is worth a thousand words.
But the task of figuring out what’s going on in a picture has left computers speechless — until now. New language tech is making it happen. But what are the ethical issues connected …
Why do words appear the way they do?
Why aren’t words the same in every language?
Sometimes it doesn’t seem to make any sense. But new research shows that maybe language is not as arbitrary as it seems.
Linguist Daniel …
Have you heard of eggcorns?
They’re off-quoted sayings that sometimes reel their ugly heads, and some might just leave you curled up in the feeble position.
Are they wrong? That might be a bit of a mute point. …
Just how far back in history does the F-word go?
Further than we thought. A historian has discovered evidence that pushes the term back by hundreds of years. Meanwhile, researchers are finding which swears are most popular where.
Linguist Daniel …
The human family got a new branch this week with the appearance of Homo naledi, a new species of human.
But did they have language? And how can we tell from a lot of old bones?
It’s early yet, but …
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