Words R Us

"Because" previously had two usages: finite clause or prepositional phrase. With changing language use, "because" has evolved as a preposition. Now, instead of saying "I need to do the dishes because I have chores" which uses "because" as a finite clause, now it's acceptable to say: "I need to do the dishes, because chores" which uses "because" as a preposition.

This article explains Bill Nyeʻs perspective on how word use is extremely important when talking about climate change, as it can change how urgent people consider this issue. This shows the power of changing even just one word in a phrase or sentence, and how it can affect how language is perceived. One example they used was "phasing down coal" instead of "phasing out coal"; in reality, we want to eliminate the use of coal, but by using the word "down" instead of "out" it creates a different tone.

Self affirmations have been seen to impact peoples' performance in sports. The self affirmation theory says that our sense of self worth can be affected by affirmations, especially when they are written out. If we don't affirm ourselves, we instead transition to defensive strategies of self deprecation.

SPANISH LANGUAGE TEXT. There is no English translation that I know of for this article. Comprised of eleven interviews of fairly "high-class" individuals (including authors, journalists, doctors, lawyers, professors, religious officials, and more), the focus of this article is profanity, and whether or not said individuals use profanity while speaking. Interestingly enough, eight out of the eleven individuals used profanity fairly regularly. Most of those eight were fairly shameful about their use of profanity, or only used them in particular contexts-including, interestingly enough, during homilies/sermons. Only one person (Pilar de Río) declared that they used profanity freely and enthusiastically, while others, though admitting the merits of such language (particularly its expressive power), did not view them in such a positive light. Two additional members of the eleven interviewees primarily used "muletas" or "muletillas," or, as we know them in English, crutches or filler words. This article is quite interesting if examining profanity in different cultures and languages, as it is a Spanish-language article from El Ciervo, the longest-running magazine in Spain's history. Do note, again, that this source is a SPANISH LANGUAGE TEXT, and that some proficiency in the language will be needed to interpret this text, even with the help of online dictionaries.

This article examines different ways that casual racism is seen in our daily lives. Due to certain stereotypes engrained in our society, racism is often unintentional, and people don't understand the weight of their words.

A book investigating the history of profanity, and the evolution of society's attitude towards profanity. The description of the book (on ProQuest, which can be accessed through your Punahou credentials), summarizes it as "a fascinating, comprehensive insight into an increasingly popular area, [which] provides an explanation, and not simply a description, of how modern attitudes to bad language have come about." Written by Tony McEnery and published in 2005. A potentially interesting jumping-off point for people interested in exploring the ever-evolving societal perspective on profanity. (Reposted because of incomplete tags; previous post deleted)

This journal is about how meaning in music can be communicated. Many people say that they express themselves through music, so this journal goes in-depth about how different people communicate their thoughts through music.

This is a comprehensive review that talks about how television affects language learning and vocabulary building in young children. They cite lots of experiments and books related to this topic.

How TV shows, more specifically Peppa Pig, affect language development in young children. This study looked at the language lexicons within episodes and evaluated whether or not it was appropriate for young language learners.

I found this article on writing survey questions really helpful. Definitely worth a read if you're planning to use survey instrumentation as part of your research data collection process. Badly-written questions can skew data, cause confusion, and bias respondents. The number of questions, how choices are ordered, and the demographics of who you're surveying can also affect the information that you gather.

This study, published in the acclaimed science journal _Nature_, examined how age and exposure to different types of COVID-19 (mis)information affect misinformation beliefs, perceived credibility of the message and intention-to-share it on WhatsApp.

The Gitxsan Nation, an indigenous tribe, is located in northwestern British Columbia. Victoria software developer and linguist Aidan Pine used open source code to adapt the virally-popular online game Wordle for Gitxsan. While Pine recognizes that games like Wordle can support language learners, Pine said he's it's important to remember that technology is not what keeps languages alive. "People revitalize languages through hard work and determination. And if small games like this can help or make it easier, that's great." Stay tuned--word has it there's an `Ōlelo Hawai`i version in the works, and other coder linguists can find Pineʻs code here (itʻs adaptable to any language): github.com/roedoejet/AnyLanguage-Wordle

https://www.mauinews.com/news/local-news/2022/02/uh-maui-college-professor-releases-hawaiian-version-of-online-game-wordle/ Ka pepa uila: hulihua.net

This website highlights a 5-part documentary series which explores the most controversial and misunderstood language variety in the United States: African American Language (AAL). With the perspectives of everyday people and the guidance of historians, linguists, and educators, the series showcases the history of the language, the symbolic role it plays in the lives of African Americans, and the tremendous impact on the language and culture of the United States. Contains video clips, educational resources.

Linguist Victor Mair references Caleb Madison's article in the "The Good Word" column of The Atlantic (1/24/22): "Why We're All Shooketh: The term is online slang of Biblical proportions". The phrase I'm shooketh was first uttered by the comedian Christine Sydelko in a YouTube video uploaded to her account in 2017 (she was expressing her shock at having been recognized by a fan at Boston Market). The adjective shooketh took off as a way to lend biblical proportions to awestruck confusion. But the linguistic journey to its creation spans the evolution of the English language, connecting Early Modern English, turn-of-the-century adventure novels, and Twitter slang. In the original article, Madison noted that when we want to transform verbs like shake into adjectives, we typically use something called a participle, either present or past. The present participle of shake is shaking, as in "I'm shaking." The past participle would be "I'm shaken." But in the 19th century, the simple past tense, shook, took hold. As for the "eth" part, Mair notes that this suffix was used in Early Modern English (think Shakespeare and the King James Bible) to put verbs in the third-person present tense, e.g. "she loveth." Soon, -eth simplified to just -s, but we still use the form when we need to give our verbs a little extra ancient oomph. It just wouldn't be as momentous to say "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away!" And it certainly wouldn't be as cool to say "I'm shooks." But our distance from the Elizabethan era allows -eth to reappear with no tense tension. Instead, it simply adds a wry dramatic flourish to the feeling of being shook. If using shook dials the shock of shaken up a notch, adding -eth pushes the intensity to 11, expressing a holy and almost sublime desire in the face of inexplicable events. Shooketh yokes together a punchy modern verbal innovation with a dramatic formal relic of early English to communicate a shaking of biblical propor

Have you ever experienced an emotion or feeling that couldn't be described in words? There may be the perfect word for it in another language! This article shares 13 words from languages around the world that have no direct translation in English, such as "depaysement": the feeling of not belonging in a foreign country.

President Joe Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci mispronounced the new COVID variant at a recent White House speech, calling the variant "omnicron" instead of the Greek letter "omicron." However, linguists explain that this is an expected error, as it is common for humans to take words from other languages and 'nativize' foreign sounds to make it more natural-sounding in their mother tongue. The abundance of English words with the prefix omni- seems to serve like a magnet, drawing in speakers to the similar set of letters and tempting speakers to mispronounce the omi- prefix as "omnicron."