Words R Us

How to identify what you are saying to yourself; how to determine if your self-talk is unproductive

An Outside Magazine article that blends information and virtual reality.

It also follows our "recipe" for essays: begin first with a story, then move into research....tasty.

The Charles Lutwidge Dodgson poem which gave the English language such portmanteau words as "chortle" and "burble" has also been put into other languages -- including Klingon and Esperanto (four versions). One also in Choctaw. How *does* one translate meaningless words?

thanks for joining us, Mr. Wagenseller!

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!)

Recent research suggests the evolution of language may be influenced more by culture than by "programming."

New study co-authored by Lera Boroditsky: "The way we talk about complex and abstract ideas is suffused with metaphor. In five experiments...we find that metaphors can have a powerful influence over how people attempt to solve complex problems and how they gather more information to make "well-informed" decisions."

"They found that in any given humpback population, all the males will sing the same mating song. But the tune's pattern and structure will occasionally change, and as more catchy versions emerge they spread across the ocean - for some reason almost always moving west to east - and supplant the older, now stale songs."

"They are making the inference - not consciously - that when someone has difficulty making a word they are most likely referring to an object that is rare," says Aslin.

"The graph is dramatic. It shows that the odds that prisoners will be successfully paroled start off fairly high at around 65% and quickly plummet to nothing over a few hours (although, see footnote). After the judges have returned from their breaks, the odds abruptly climb back up to 65%, before resuming their downward slide. A prisoner's fate could hinge upon the point in the day when their case is heard."

"EF Education First, an English-teaching company, compiled the biggest ever internationally comparable sample of English learners: some 2m people took identical tests online in 44 countries." Interesting data, especially about how different factors correlate with English ability. Direct link to report: http://www.ef.com/sitecore/__/~/media/efcom/epi/pdf/EF-EPI-2011.pdf

"The idea of "> Language > Place" is to create a collaborate virtual journey through different places, in different formats, and with different languages included - the main language is english, yet the idea is that every post also includes snippets or terms of other languages, and refers to a specific place, country, region or city. "