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See also the graphs at the bottom of the page. "Perhaps the biggest collection of words ever assembled has just gone online: 500 billion of them, from 5 million books published over the past four centuries... The words make up a searchable database that researchers at Harvard say is a new and powerful tool to study cultural change... You can, for instance, type in a word or a short phrase, and the database produces a graph - a curve that traces how often an author used those words every year since 1800."

"The goal of the Lexicalist project is to develop a dictionary that depicts, in real time, the changing demographics of English in the United States, a dictionary that supplements the fundamental meaning of a word or phrase with the current cultural backdrop that's informing its use today."

"MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech is not only literarily brilliant, its structure follows the presentation form perfectly, by traversing back and forth between what is and what could be, and ending by describing what the new bliss of equality looks like. In addition, MLK carefully chooses phrases and metaphors that resonate deeply with his audience." I'd recommend watching the video: http://vimeo.com/18792376

"No other book, or indeed any piece of culture, seems to have influenced the English language as much as the King James Bible. Its turns of phrase have permeated the everyday language of English speakers, whether or not they've ever opened a copy."

"Neural processing that goes into deciphering simple two-word phrases is different from what happens when decoding complete sentences and other more complex linguistic expressions."

A lot of different ways to say "Thank you." Fun to identify some of the language groups via the morphology of the phrase (but Tahitian is quite the change!)

Linguistic scientists have now identified the most confusing sayings in the British-English language. Most of these phrases come from historical events and military slang.

Yale University said Thursday that it's replacing terms such as 'freshman' and 'upperclassman' with more gender-neutral phrasing like 'first-year' and 'upper-level student.' The changes come after faculty began deliberating the issue in 2016, when students said they wanted 'greater gender inclusivity,' on campus, according to the Yale Daily News. The school said the new phrasing is a way to modernize its formal correspondence and public literature.

A traveling journalist in Beijing utilizes both Baidu (China's version of Google) and Google voice-translation apps with mixed results. You speak into the apps, they listen and then translate into the language you choose. They do it in writing, by displaying text on the screen as you talk; and out loud, by using your phone's speaker to narrate what you've said once you're done talking. Typically exchanges are brief: 3-4 turns on average for Google, 7-8 for Baidu's translate app. Both Google and Baidu use machine learning to power their translation technology. While a human linguist could dictate all the rules for going from one language to another, that would be tedious, and yield poor results because a lot of languages aren't structured in parallel form. So instead, both companies have moved to pattern recognition through "neural machine translation." They take a mountain of data - really good translations - and load it into their computers. Algorithms then mine through the data to look for patterns. The end product is translation that's not just phrase-by-phrase, but entire thoughts and sentences at a time. Not surprisingly, sometimes translations are successes, and other times, epic fails. Why? As Macduff Hughes, a Google executive, notes, "there's a lot more to translation than mapping one word to another. The cultural understanding is something that's hard to fully capture just in translation."

In the article, Stuart McGurk talks about how in Trump's tweets, the words that be used that is usually used in the empathic way, does not communicate Trump's actual feelings. In the article, it is stated that Trump used the word sorry in 72 tweets, but never actually used in the ways were someone would feel sorrow for something. Instead, for example, he used it in a way were if Obama said sorry, he would have more respect for him. See how he was able to use a sympathetic word but not in the way that he is feeling sorry. Also, in certain circumstances, the wording that Trump uses is not appropriate. For example, in light of the Las Vegas shooting, Trump tweeted, "My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting." No one would use the phrase "Warmest Condolences" in this situation.

Yikes: "warmest condolences"! Our president: Master Malaprop. LOL!

The etymology of some words. Amazing how things have changed.

Interesting article. There may be, however, counter-explanations for this combined phrase. Hip was cited by Samuel Johnson in the mid-1700s as a variant of the Latin phrase "eho, heus": an exclamation calling for attention (_The Nature of Roman Comedy_, Duckworth 1994). And hooray, according to the OED, is a variation of hurrah (int. and n.), a word used as early as 1716, a century before the anti-Semitic forces took it up as a rallying cry. Have snipped the following definitions from the OED: Word #1. Hip (int.): hip, int. (and n.4) 1. 'An exclamation or calling to one; the same as the Latin eho, heus!' (Johnson). 1752 in Ainsworth's Thes. Linguæ Latinæ (ed. 4) 1768-74 A. Tucker Light of Nature (1852) I. 34 Perhaps Dr. Hartley‥may give me a hip, and call out, 'Prithee, friend, do not think to slip so easily by me'. 2. An exclamation used (usually repeated thrice) to introduce a united cheer: hence as n. 1827 W. Hone Every-day Bk. 12 To toss off the glass, and huzza after the 'hip! hip! hip!' of the toast giver. a1845 T. Hood Sniffing a Birthday xiv, No flummery then from flowery lips, No three times three and hip-hip-hips! 1849 Thackeray Pendennis (1850) I. xvii. 154 'Here's Mrs. Smirke's good health: Hip, hip, hurray!' hip-hurrah v. (also hip-hip-hurrah) 1832 Examiner 609/2 One set of men 'hip hurrah' and rattle decanter stoppers. 1871 T. Carlyle in Lett. & Memorials J. W. Carlyle (1883) I. 116 In the course of the installation dinner, at some high point of the hep-hep hurrahing. Word #2: Hurrah: Pronunciation: /hʊˈrɑː/ /həˈrɑː/ /hʊˈreɪ/ /həˈreɪ/ Forms: Also 16- hurra, 17 hurrea, whurra, 18 hooray, ( hooroar), hourra. Etymology: A later substitute for huzza v. (not in Johnson, Ash, Walker; in Todd 1818), perhaps merely due to onomatopoeic modification, but possibly influenced by some foreign shouts: compare Swedish, Danish, Low German

Researchers at the University of Washington developed a play-based, intensive, English-language method and curriculum and implemented the research-based program in four public infant-education centers in Madrid, Spain. Based on years of UW's I-LABS (Institute of Learning and Brain Science) research on infant brain and language development, UW's pilot bilingual education method utilized the following brain-research principles: 1. social interaction 2. play 3. high quality and quantity of language from the teachers. 4. Use of "infant-directed speech", or "parentese": the speech style parents use to talk to their babies, which has simpler grammar, higher and exaggerated pitch, and drawn-out vowels. 5. Active child engagement. The country's extensive public education system enabled the researchers to enroll 280 infants and children from families of varying income levels. Babies aged 7 to 33.5 months were given one hour of English sessions a day, using the UW method, for 18 weeks, while a control group received the Madrid schools' standard bilingual program. Both groups of children were tested in Spanish and English at the start and end of the 18 weeks. Children who received the UW method showed rapid increases in English comprehension and production, and significantly outperformed the control group peers at all ages on all tests of English. By the end of the 18-week program, the children in the UW program produced an average of 74 English words or phrases per child, per hour; children in the control group produced 13 English words or phrases per child, per hour. This 3 minute video succinctly captures the study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE5fBAS6gf4

Siri uses a variety of advanced machine learning technologies to be able to understand your command and return a response - primarily natural language processing (NLP) and speech recognition. NLP primarily focuses on allowing computers to understand and communicate in human language. In terms of programming, languages are split up into three categories - syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Whereas syntax describes the structure and composition of the phrases, semantics provide meaning for the syntactic elements. Pragmatics, on the other hand, refers to the composition and context in which the phrase is used.

This post is about Korean language and the two main sections of speech styles in Korea. It will help you better understand the different speaking styles in Korean and when and how to use them. The two styles of speech, 존댓말 (Polite speech) and 반말 (Informal speech), are spoken based on hierarchy since Korean culture has strong Confucian influence due to the country's history. The hierarchy is mainly based on age and social status. For example, when speaking to a teacher in school, you would speak to them with polite speech because they are older than you and know more than you. Phrases and sentences can be said in different ways depending on the style of speech used, but will still have the same meaning.

This article by Candice Jalili on Time discusses the body language people tend to have when lying. Everyone can lie, in fact, the average American tells one to two lies each day. It explains how to detect honesty in a conversation, including where their eyes go and how their voice sounds. When someone is lying, they are likely uncomfortable, so they may fidget or have frequent voice cracks. Doctors from the healthcare community provide input on signs people display when lying. The main sections of this article are body cues, facial cues, tone of voice, and content of speech. Body cues include hand movement and itching/fidgeting. Facial cues are eye movement, mouth position, change in complexion, and sweating. The section on tone of voice consists of a high pitched voice and changes in volume while speaking. Lastly, content of speech includes phrases people use, filler words, and slip-ups.

This scientific paper analyzed the types of code switching in a presidential speech, those being tag, intesentential, and intrasentential. Tag refers to adding a "tag" phrase in a differing language at the end of a phrase or sentence. Intesentential refers to a switch after a full sentence, and intrasentential refers to a switch in the middle of the sentence.

This article discusses a new "Hidden Words" feature on dating apps. This new feature allows people to filter out words, phrases, or emojis that are off-putting or considered an "ick." Some examples include pineapple on pizza, using the wrong your and you're, and there, their, and they're. The idea behind this concept is to filter out people who use such phrases in an attempt to avoid burnout from what is considered irritating language.

"'Lexical Warfare' is a phrase that I like to use for battles over how a term is to be understood. ... Over the past few years we've watched a lexical warfare battle slowly unfold in the treatment of the term 'hacktivism.' ... We are not passive observers in this dispute. The meaning of words is determined by those of us who use language, and it has consequences."