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It should have been obvious how I felt. It goes without saying! The most common source of miscommunication in any relationship is a very simple one: We routinely fail to realize how little we are actually communicating. In other words, we think we say a lot more than we actually do.

Interesting article/interview with a forensic linguist gives insight into how exactly they catch criminals.

"But the speed of the typists' keystrokes revealed something else. After hitting the wrong key, a typist's fingers slowed down for the next keystroke, even if the researchers sneakily fixed the error so that the typist didn't notice it. In these cases, a typist wasn't explicitly aware of the mistake, but the brain's motor signal changed nevertheless."

In late January 2016, the British government revealed a plan to invest $28 million in English classes for immigrants. If unable to pass a language test after 36 months in Britain, immigrants will risk deportation. Britain's plan soon became a laughingstock after its Home Office announced a "New English langauge test for family route migrants." The Washington Post covers the criticism and the viewpoints of those who have seen the mistake - and those who have made it.

National Public Radio interviewed linguist John McWhorter on words and semantic change. The interview provides several contemporary examples showing how words and language are constantly changing. Mc Whorter asserts, "I think that we should learn not to listen to people using natural language as committing errors because there's no such thing as making a mistake in your language if a critical mass of other people speaking your language are doing the same thing."

Our brains are set up to do two things at once, but not three, a French team reports in the journal Science. Their experiment examined an area of the brain involved in goals and rewards and tested people's abilities to accomplish up to three mental tasks at the same time. When volunteers were doing just one task, there was activity in goal-oriented areas of both frontal lobes, suggesting that the two sides of the brain were working together to get the job done. But when people took on a second task, the lobes divided their responsibilities. Since the brain has only two frontal lobes, researchers surmised there might be a limit to the number of goals and rewards it can handle. Indeed, when people started a third task, one of the original goals disappeared from their brains. Also people slowed down and made many more mistakes.

By Leonardo VintiñiEpoch Times Staff Perhaps the most important job for a copy editor is to ensure that text is free of spelling mistakes. But is error-riddled text any less understandable? On repeated occasions researchers have found that people can still understand the meaning of sentences even if they are completely made up of jumbled words.

This is a great site for getting an idea of what colleges are looking for in an essay. My idea of a good college essay changed after reading the top voted college essay.

The top essay was a very descriptive piece. It sounded like a short story, and I didn't know you could write about those kind of topics on a college essay. This site really helps me get a better idea of what an essay should look like when the time comes to submit one.

It really helps to be able to read examples of good college essays. It gives you an idea of not only what to write about but how to write it. I never would have guessed some of the top voted college essays would be written on such simple, everyday topics. I have a lot of work to do haha.

login: vt@punahou.edu password: oahua

This article highlights a decline in spelling emphasis in elementary school curriculum. Ironically, spelling mistakes are still socially unacceptable. A misspelled word can lead to social judgment in today's society.

Why are people so frequently betrayed by their mouths? Scientists and psychologists have different theories about this special breed of mortification. People say between two and six words per second, which affords plenty of room for mistakes. For Dr. Geoff Goodman, a psychoanalyst in New York and professor at Long Island University, using the wrong word or name "reveals a secret desire forbidden by society or one's self." Before the mind goes into censor mode, the unconscious, hidden thoughts can spill out.

Studies suggest a link between negative cognition (a.k.a. negative thinking) and increased propensity for guilt, chronic anxiety clinical depression. (Apparently, women are more prone to negative cognition than men.) Psychology professor Emeritus Tom Stevens of California State University describes some common negative thinking pitfalls and offers advice as to what you can do instead. Research has supported the efficacy of cognitive therapy (called cognitive restructuring) that replaces these styles with more positive thinking. 1. Negative bias. Negative bias is a tendency to look at the more negative side of some event, person, object, or situation. It gives a negative interpretation or a negative point of view for looking at a situation. Instead think: I will assume the best instead of assume the worst. Positive self-fulfilling prophesies tend to create positive outcomes; negative self-fulfilling prophesies tend to create negative outcomes. Negative explanations of my own or other peoples' underlying motives cause me to intensify my anger or other negative feelings. Assuming the world is a hostile place creates fear, anxiety, and anger. 2. Negative selective abstraction. Selective abstraction means taking negative features of a situation out of context and exaggerating their significance. Usually it also means negating positive features. Example: A student who gets four "A"s and one "C," then focuses on the "C's." Instead think: I will list at least one positive feature for each negative feature. I will limit my focus on negative features to constructive thoughts about how I can either accept or change the negative features. 3. Overgeneralization. When we overgeneralize, we assume far-reaching conclusions from limited data. A student made a "D" on one test. She overgeneralizes, she doesn't just think "Well, I messed up on that one test. Instead, "I may not pass the course, not ever finish college." "I must be stupid and a failure." "My whole life is ruin

Love comes in all different shapes, sizes and languages. Helena Halmari, English and Linguistics professor, held a forum on Friday that examined love letters between Finnish composer Jean Sibelius and his wife, Aino. Halmari has been studying the letters through which the couple corresponded. What Halmari has found to be so interesting is that Jean wrote mostly in Swedish, while Aino wrote in Finnish. She talked about the different ways she studied the languages. "I wanted to get a general idea of how the languages were divided," said Halmari. "I knew that it could be very simple because Sibelius uses Swedish and Aino uses Finnish, but it wasn't always simple because they sometimes mixed each other's languages together. Most of the time, though, they stick to their own languages, which didn't make it hard for them at all because they were both bilingual." One would expect the use of two different languages to affect communication in some way, especially negatively. However, Jean and Aino were able to clearly understand each other, and even appreciated the other's use of their first language. Halmarin discussed the relationship between the two. "I don't think their use of two different languages impeded their communication because they both knew each other's languages," said Halmari. "For Jean, Swedish was the preferred written language, because he always worried that he would make mistakes when writing in Finnish." While she has examined forms of bilingual audio communication, such as medieval sermons and recordings, the letters are the first written form of bilingual communication that Halmari has come across. "I haven't looked at letters that were like this before," Halmari said. "In my research, I've looked at bilingual spoken language like recordings, and even email correspondence. They tend to follow the same patterns, though it's not as clear, because some people mix the languages sometimes within the same senten

Article talks about apologies and how CEOs whose facial expression matched their apologies had better invester recovery. Also, the vague language CEOs use in their apologies removed blame from themselves and made it seem like the mistake "just happened" rather than being their fault.

I wonder what the effects of possessing the skill to read others' facial expressions would produce. Would it strengthen our relationships with people or weaken them?

When the article said that misreading emotions is worst than not knowing of the emotion at all is worst, I question whether reading emotions is even worth it. Also, compared to a century ago, the divorce rate has skyrocketed. Could the lack of reading emotions be the cause of this increase? Emotions are innate and humans have always read or not read emotions. What's the difference between now and then? Freedom? So what if you can read someone's emotions? If you can't assist the person in his/her tragedy or emotional stress being able to read emotions is worthless. In addition Paul Ekman said that the percent rate after his lessons on DVD rose to 80-85%, but that still leaves 15%-20% of mistake. As i previously said, the article says that misreading emotions is worst than not knowing of the emotions at all. There's still of chance of being worst. Are we really accomplishing whatever we are trying to do by learning how to read emotions?

This is a very cool article, as it has caused me to become more aware of other people's reactions - sometimes I know that someone is holding an emotion in, but hopefully, through observing their facial gestures, perhaps I can find out how they feel.

This article explains key principles and strategies for how to learn languages. It talks about the important elements: comprehensible input (understanding), comprehensible output (producing), and review/feedback (identifying and correcting errors). It mentions the need for balance and avoiding putting too much effort on one skill. It also talks about the importance of embracing mistakes, being comfortable with not knowing certain things, and creating low-stakes practices to become more comfortable with errors. It talks about motivation in learning and the drive for people's desire to learn the language. It includes a lot of psychology in it too.