You can find it almost everywhere: in every gift shop, on every online merchandise store, on every souvenir stand – and on every object imaginable, from posters and postcards to coffee mugs, water bottles, t-shirts, and phone cases: the brick-red background, the stylized white crown, and in big, bold letters, those five iconic words: Keep Calm and Carry On. …or, […]
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From the dawn of history we humans have been obsessed with measurement, striving to gauge, rank, and quantify every part of our world from the tallest mountain to the tiniest grain of sand. It is an obsession which led to the development of the precise mathematics and science which underpin our modern world. But one unfortunate result of this millennia-long […]
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Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee, Zulu. If you have ever served in the armed forces or worked in the aviation industry, these words are most likely permanently seared into your brain. And even if you haven’t, you have probably heard […]
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Of all the various hand gestures we humans commonly use, few are as complicated and versatile as the “V-sign,” AKA “the forks” or the “two-finger salute”. With just a twist of the wrist, this simple sign can go from a symbol of victory, peace, or Kawaii cuteness to an extremely rude gesture roughly translating to “Up yours!” Or “F**k you!” […]
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At 2:46 PM on March 11, 2011, at a spot 60 kilometres off the coast of Japan, the Pacific tectonic plate suddenly slipped and plunged under the Eurasian plate. The resulting Tohoku earthquake, lasting six minutes and measuring 9.0 on the Moment Magnitude Scale, was the most powerful in Japanese history and the fourth largest ever recorded, causing thousands of […]
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If I say the words “Third World Country”, what image springs to mind? Most likely something out of a World Vision commercial: starving children, ramshackle villages of corrugated metal huts, dirty water, disease, corruption, human rights abuses, and war. Now, what about a “First World Country?” Well, if you’re watching this video right now, odds are you live in one […]
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If you’ve ever worked in an office, chances are at some point you’ve had to interact with that coworker. You know the one: miserable, antisocial, constantly grumbling about every minor inconvenience. The one who never takes lunch with the rest of the staff, is constantly late or underperforming, and responds to even the most reasonable request with barely contained rage. […]
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Imagine enjoying a picnic as a friend suddenly informed you that there was a spider on your north shoulder. Would you know which shoulder to check? This might sound bizarre to an uninitiated English speaker, but to a speaker of Gugu Yimithirr, it would be perfectly natural. Speakers of this Australian language (and several others around the world) primarily use […]
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If you speak one language, you’re a normal, functioning human being. If you speak two, you’re bilingual. If you speak three, you’re an overachiever and everyone hates you. But what about if you speak 10? Or 20? Or 30? Well, then you’re considered a polyglot or a hyperpolyglot depending on how awesome a word you think you deserve to describe […]
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“It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.” At one point or another we’ve all heard someone use this phrase or a variation thereof to sarcastically describe some malfunctioning piece of equipment or software. Indeed, the word “bug” has long been ubiquitous in the world of engineering and computer science, with “debugging” – the act of seeking out and correcting errors […]
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It is the single most profound question of the 21st Century, a debate which has dominated intellectual discourse for more than three decades. Some of the greatest minds and institutions in the world have weighed in on the issue, from top linguists and tech giants to the Oxford English Dictionary and even the President of the United States. Yet despite […]
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Just where did language come from and what does it take for a language to develop? If a group of children grew up isolated from the rest of the world, without any access to human language, would they create one of their own and, if so, what would it look like and how long would it take? These questions have […]
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BaKlol asks: Where did the word fuck come from? In its various incarnations, the F-word can be a noun, verb, adjective, and even an infix. The Swiss Army Knife of the English language, this word has been adding spice to our conversations for centuries, even if our forbears were loathe to write it down. So where did it come from? […]
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Historically, written language has always been rather limited in its ability to adequately represent the nuance of in-person communication, which comes with a whole slew of gesticulations, facial expressions, subtle shifts in tone and the like. As such, humans have been attempting to find ways around this problem seemingly as long as we’ve been writing stuff down. Going back to […]
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A common thing you’ll hear monolingual adults saying whenever discussing potentially learning a second language is that they lament not having done so as a child when it is easier. But the truth is, while the notion that kids learn languages faster and more easily is an almost universally held belief, even among some linguists, it turns out adults actually […]
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Neikoptic asks: If I was transported back in time to Medieval times like in a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court could I still talk to people or would we not understand each other? Contrary to what many a Grammar Nazi the world over would have you believe, language is constantly evolving, occasionally extremely rapidly, and there is nothing wrong […]
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Jeremy A. asks: How did flipping the bird come to mean fu? While some common gestures, such as the high five, have pretty well known and surprisingly modern origins, it turns out one of the most popular of all has been around for well over two thousand years, including having various similar connotations as it has today. Unsurprisingly once you […]
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Jared asks: Why do racehorses have such weird names? Who picks them? In the world of horse racing, the name of a given horse is considered to be almost as important as its ability to run. Thanks, in part, to a large number of rigid rules put in place by the the various governing bodies of the sport, picking a […]
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