Language

Merriam-Webster continues to be the shadiest Twitter account out there

Well, it is definitely official. Merriam-Webster runs the shadiest Twitter page. And by “shadiest,” we mean the realest and most hilarious page ever. …

A Language Expert on Why We Struggle to Communicate

Language is increasingly contentious. So much of it is rooted in old-ass traditions that no longer suit our current social and political landscape. …

AP style change: Singular they is acceptable ‘in limited cases’

For the first time, The Associated Press now permits journalists to use "they" as a singular pronoun. The AP announced the style change Friday at the …

Why Fresh Words And An Ever-Evolving Dictionary Matter

Language has always been and will always be in a state of flux. As culture changes, the meaning and impact of words evolve too. Seemingly imperceptible shifts occur every day. But while people tend to fall into two camps — those who take to new slang as easily as breathing and those who think that …

How to revive Massachusetts’ first language

In a classroom in the basement of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribal resources center, a dozen or so toddlers are speaking a language that until a few …

Six ways Germans could learn to deal with foreigners better

Expat surveys consistently show that Germany is a great place to move to. The education is first-class, it offers the ideal setting to raise …

BEST WAY TO INCREASE IQ AND RELAX WITH SYMMETRY PATH TO PERFECTION ANDROID AND IOS GAME [Urdu/Hindi]

The Manitoba sound

In the summer of 2000, Sheena Fougere and two friends hopped a plane bound for London. The trip was no work, all play: just a fun girls’ getaway, a …

Learn a New Language With This Award-Winning Software

Get started now.<p>Learning a new language is an amazing skill, and research has shown that the brains of those who speak two or more languages operate …

French phrases that language learners just don't get

<b>C'est n'importe quoi</b><p><i>Ni'importe quoi</i> is one of those terms we hear thrown into French sentences a lot, so we naturally try to do the same, but don't …

Which languages should children be learning to get ahead?

There are 7,099 known languages in the world today.Choosing which of these to teach our children as a second language is an important decision, but …

Quiz: Can you tell which of these workplace phrases are American and which are British?

Poor punctuation, bad spelling, and dead metaphors all pique language purists. But when it comes to pure annoyance, few areas of language seem to rile people as much as management-speak.<p>Often, terms annoy because they’re seen as being imposed by another culture. If you live in the UK, for example, …

Where Does The Term 'Fake News' Come From? The 1890s, Apparently

According to Merriam-Webster, the term was around long before Pizzagate.<p>“Fake news” is so ubiquitous now, it’s hard to believe that just a few months ago, we barely ever used the term.<p>According to Google Trends, it blew up in November, the month of the 2016 election. Initially, it described the …

In Canada, glory hole or beaver fever doesn’t mean what you think: Highlights from a new catalogue of ‘Canadianisms’

For the first time since 1967, there is a new edition of the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles.<p>Assembled over years by an …

Québec Nationalists: Parlez-Vous Freedom? | Pierre-Guy Veer

Since the 1960s, the Québec National Assembly (provincial parliament) has been full of politicians whose explicit goal is to separate Québec from the …

Keep Pretending To Understand Babies—It Makes Them Smarter

Your friend recently had a baby, and their bundle of joy couldn't be cuter. He's also quite the talker... but here's the thing, you have no idea what …

Is it ACHA or AHCA? A linguist explains why so many people are abbreviating the healthcare bill wrong

As Congress geared up for a vote on the American Health Care Act on Friday before the bill was pulled, one thing was for certain: folks were having a difficult time abbreviating its title.<p>All over social media, journalists, pundits, and even some of the very politicians voting on the healthcare …

A Conversation with Elif Batuman on Freshman Awkwardness, Email, and Her Novel The Idiot

Elif Batuman’s debut novel, <i>The Idiot</i>, is a novel about language. Or, more specifically, it’s about language’s inability to communicate feelings or …

Learners' Questions: Using the word 'worth'

A Delightful Dictionary for Canadian English

A new musical opened on Broadway last week, “Come from Away,” about Gander, a small town in Newfoundland that rallied to care for some seven thousand travellers stuck there after their planes were grounded in the aftermath of 9/11. The play celebrates a variety of Canadian habits and customs, of …

Half of All Languages Come from One Root Language. How it Spread Is Something of Debate

The sheer variety of languages on Earth is dizzying in their array and divergence. What’s more intriguing, is that about half of them spoken today by …

12 phrases that can make you sound ignorant at work

How you communicate with others, whether through speech or written text, influences how others perceive and evaluate you as a professional.<p>According to Lynn Taylor, a national workplace expert and the author of "Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in …

How Speaking Another Language Can Change Your Personality

More and more, research is showing that language goes a lot deeper than communication. The way you speak impacts the way you think, changing …

These Amazing Websites Will Teach You a Great New Skill (Even If You're Busy)

Today, there’s no excuse not to be able to learn new skills.<p>While decades ago, we were limited to the confinements of a library or a classroom, we …

The best smartphone apps for learning French

A winning way to learn French is while sitting (or more likely, standing) on the Metro, in your lunch break or whenever you have a spare five minutes.<p>…

Helpful Illustrations Define Feelings of Love That Have No English Translation

Love is a universal language, but sometimes, saying a simple “I love you” doesn’t accurately express what you really feel. In this way, the English language falls short of conveying your true emotions. Luckily, there’s a way to bridge the gap. We can adopt words from other cultures that aren’t …

How English Creates a New Caste System in India

<i>Contemporary India has created a system in which the majority of Indian youth find little educational and economic value in learning their native and</i> …

The Etymological Origins of Two-Part Words That Have One Part More Obscure That the Other

In an interesting episode of their incredibly informative whiteboard series for Mental Floss , linguist Arika Okrent and illustrator Sean O’Neill …

What Is Good Writing?

I’ve been reviewing books informally on my blog for almost 10 years now, and I’ve gotten pretty good at determining whether a plot or characters …

Some Theories On Trump's Misuse Of Quotation Marks

And while we're at it, let's look at those parentheses.<p>President Donald Trump’s extremely active Twitter feed constantly presents us with profound questions about the nature of language. Why does he deploy so many exclamation points? Use strings of repetitive synonyms? End so many tweets with …