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Perhaps no other American author has had his writing style more widely examined, more often imitated, and more intensively deconstructed than Ernest Hemingway. No one seems able to get their head around the intricacy he brings about via such simplicity. Hemingway used only the most necessary words, then pared them down even further.

Students in South Africa are thought to be at a disadvantage since they switch from learning in their native language to learning in english. Researchers, however, believe that it is more advantageous to students to learn in the language in which they feel most comfortable. Switching between the mother tongue at home and English at school is shown to be a struggle for most children. Since the simplicity of the mother tongue has no ties to english, the children are basically learning two different languages at once, trying to apply the two to one another.

Research has proved repeatedly that children undoubtedly achieve much better when they start schooling in a language linked to one they can already use quite well. Using a familiar language for schooling is a big part of such success, which is why the late South African educationalist Neville Alexander advocated for mother tongue based-bilingual education.

The German poet Christian Morgenstern once said that "all seagulls look as though their name were Emma." Though Morgenstern was known for his nonsense poetry, there was truth in his suggestion that some linguistic labels are perfectly suited to the concepts they denote. Similar to what we've learned about metaphors, labels and names influence how we think and behave. Studies suggest as soon as you label a concept, you change how people perceive it (aka the Heisenberg principle.) Words evoke images such as 'bouba' and 'kiki' from James Geary's TedTalk, directional concepts such as are "north" with up and "south" with down, and simplicity of pronunciation and spelling all affects how one perceives another.

This article argues that there's an "accidental brilliance to Trump's style of speech." Trump's words aren't exactly music to our ears, yet we tend to remember them. Why? It is because Trump uses specific language that keeps us glued. Some examples given by this article are his simplicity and word placement.

A new study of 37 languages by three MIT researchers has shown that most languages move toward "dependency length minimization" (DLM) in practice. That means language users have a global preference for more locally grouped dependent words, whenever possible. Apparently, it's easier for our brains to process a sentence when related words are closer together.

Here's a quick task: Take a look at the sentences below and decide which is the most effective. (1) "John threw out the old trash sitting in the kitchen." (2) "John threw the old trash sitting in the kitchen out." Either sentence is grammatically acceptable, but you probably found the first one to be more natural. A new study of 37 languages by three MIT researchers has shown that most languages move toward "dependency length minimization" (DLM) in practice. That means language users have a global preference for more locally grouped dependent words, whenever possible.