• People Are Less Dismissive of Ideas They Hear Than Those They Read, Study Finds
• Why Reading Aloud Helps You Remember More Information
• You Remember in the Opposite Order as You See
• Burgeoning British Appreciation of Pseudo-Profound Baloney
• Scientists Identify Precisely What Makes a Poem Pleasing
Words of the Year 2017
• ‘Complicit’ Is the Word of the Year, According to Dictionary.com
• Dictionary.com Chooses ‘Complicit’ as Its Word of the Year
• Word of the Year 2017: Dictionary.com Says ‘Complicit’ Topped ‘Totality’
• Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2017: ‘Feminism’
• Nobody in the UK Has Ever…
Conversation School
• The Secret Life of ‘Um’
• Why Small Talk Is Actually Really Good for You
• The Police Have Discovered Social Media Banter — the Result Is No Joke
• The Languages That Take the Most (and Least) Time to Learn, per the US Foreign Service
• A Map Showing How Much Time It Takes to Learn Foreign Languages: Fro…
Language Policing
• China Would Really Like You to Stop Saying “Tofu”
• Eight Ways English Is Creeping Its Way into Chinese, as Explained by a Chinese YouTuber
• “Good on the Floor?” Five Funny Times Google Translate Drops the Ball with Japanese Idioms
• Quebec Tries to Say Au Revoir to ‘Hi,’ and Hello to ‘Bonjour’
• French the New Lingua Franca of the World — Vraiment?…
The Purple Color
• Eye Doctors Still Use This 100-Year-Old Test for Color Blindness
• Pantone Project: A Photographer’s Quest to Capture Colour
• The Vibrant Color Wheels Designed by Goethe, Newton & Other Theorists of Color (1665-1810)
• Pantone’s Color Of The Year Is Here, and It’s As Nebulous As 2018 Looks…
Aussie Trends
• Australians Vote to Name New Sydney Harbor Boat ‘Ferry McFerryface’
• Sydney Ferry Named Ferry McFerryface after ‘Boaty’ Rejected
• There Is Now a Ferry McFerryface Ferry, and the Crew Is Ticked
• Australian Pigeons Have a Specially Evolved Feather to Better Annoy the Heck Out O…
Language Lessons 1
• Toilet Signs Are Mysterious and Mirth-Inducing
• Finally, Evidence of Just How Much Scientists Love Using Adverbs
• 25 ‘Engrish’ Items That Got Hilariously Lost in Translation
• How to Tell Whether You Have Angst, Ennui or Weltschmerz
• Languages for Which There…
Surrounded by Sound
• Since 2010, Sad Songs Have Become Less Common All over the World
• Sorry, Christmas Music Might Be Bad for Your Health
• Scientists Analyze the Moods of 90,000 Songs Based on Music and Lyrics
• The Simple Statistical Analysis That Explains the Entire History of Popular Music
• This Bird’s Songs Share…
Don’t Have to Baby Me
• Babies Might Understand Language Better Than Anyone Thought
• Babies Learn What Words Mean Before They Can Use Them
• 6-Month-Old Infants May Understand Related Words
• Hide and Seek Might Be Good for Kids’ Brains
• School Bans Teachers from Marking in Attempt to Boost Children’s Confidenc…
National Colors
• The Reason You Almost Never See Purple on National Flags
• Tourism Logos of US States
• Tourism Logos of Canadian Provinces
• Tourism Logos for Italian Regions
• The World’s Most Powerful Passport Is No Longer European
• Places Where English Is an Official Language
• Main Native Language-Fami…
Missed Signs
• Government Snubs Campaign to Change ‘Misleading’ Soccer Road Signs
• Update the UK Traffic Signs Regulations to a Geometrically Correct Soccer Ball
• 5 Reasons Why Amsterdam Works So Well for Bikes
• ‘Beer Bikes’: Amsterdam Calls Time on Drunken, Urinating Processions
• Amsterdammers vs Tourists…
Splitting Words
• The Guardian View on Translation: An Interpretative and Creative Act
• ‘Battle of the Dictionaries’ Ends in Victory for Casino as Court Rules Star Poker Player Cheated
• What Is ‘Edge-Sorting’ and Why Did It Cost a Poker Star $10 Million in Winnings?
• Supreme Court Delves into Semantics of English in a Capital Cas…
Do You Swear?
• The Size of Things: An Ngram Experiment
• Swearing Is Good for You by Emma Byrne; How to Swear by Stephen Wildish — Review
• Daily Telegraph to Readers: Are You Able to Specifically Describe ‘Crap’?
• Language Patterns Reveal Body’s Hidden Response to Stress
• The Randomness of Languag…
Language Universals
• German Untranslatable Words
• What English-Language Courtroom Dramas Sounds Like to Swedes
• 25 Words You Didn’t Know Were in the Dictionary
• Is an All-English Classroom Good for Students?
• What Is Universal Grammar?
• What Is Neurolinguistics?
• Grammarly Debuts IOS Keyboard App to Help Improv…
Grammar School
• Cross-Linguistic Onomatopoeias
• How to Arrange (and Rearrange) Prepositional Phrases
• Become an Expert in Using Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases
• What Are the Parts of a Prepositional Phrase?
• List of the Principal Parts of Some Common Irregular Verbs in Englis…
Food Findings
• The History of Five Uniquely American Sandwiches
• How ‘Citizen Housewives’ Made Food Cheaper and Safer
• The History and Rebirth of the American Automat
• This Automated Restaurant Was Supposed to Be the Future of Dining. Until Humanity Struck Back
• The Surprising Science Behind the World’s Most Popular Frui…
Around Japan 4
• Gifu’s Yanagiya — Is This the Best Restaurant on the Planet?
• Kaki: The Miracle Japanese Persimmon
• Japanese Women Rank the Otaku Obsessions They Can Most Forgive in a Partner
• City Hands Manhole Covers to Lottery-Picked Buyers
• Translation Debate: How Do You Say “Oh My God!” in Japanes…
Map Lust 1
• Map of Aussie Slang
• European Languages by Use of Grammatical Genders and Gendered…
• The Western World According to American Political Scientist…
• Countries with a Positive Net Migration Rate
• Countries’ Yearly Population Change
• Percent of the World’s Population Within 10,000 K…
Food for the Senses
• Grocery Shoppers Buy More Food When the Music Is Slower
• This Song Is So Relaxing, Scientists Recommend NOT Listening While Behind the Wheel
• More Songs’ Emotional Moods Inverted with Key Changes
• The First Batch of 2018 Colors of the Year Is Here
• What You Call a Color Depends on How You Use It
Mother Tongues
• Naming Your Baby in These Foreign Countries Will Give You a Headache
• Parents around the World All Speak “Motherese” to Their Babies
• 6 Traits All Middle Children Share
• Why Your Kids Might Be Able to See Better If They Play Outdoors More Often
• These Are the Best and Wo…
Living Language
• ‘Alt-Right,’ ‘Troll’ and ‘Dog Whistle’ Among New Entries Added to Merriam-Webster Dictionary
• ‘Froyo,’ ‘Troll,’ and ‘Sriracha’ Added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
• Merriam-Webster Isn’t Trolling You, It’s Just Redefining What That Means
• Languages with a Synthetic Pluperfect Tense (Or… (Linguistic Map…
Herd Recently
• Sheep Also Yawn (Contagiously)
• What a Border Collie Taught a Linguist about Language
• To Save the Planet, Scientists Figured out How to Fix Cow Farts
• Why Farmers Treat Cows Like People
• The Secret Logic of Cows
• The Secret Life of Cows
• Cowabunga! Strange Cow Stories
Random Acts of Awe
• When Are You Really Random? After Age 24
• A Coin Toss Is Not as Random or Fair as It Seems
• When the Mind Wanders
• The Power of Being Bored
• Stop Being Boring When People Ask ‘So What Do You Do?’
• A Guide to Making More Time by Cultivating Everyday Awe
• Imagination Is Such an Ability It Might Precede Eve…
Howlin’ Wolves, Muddy Waters, and Squirrel Talk
• A Hurricane by Any Other Name
• The 2017 Hurricane Season Is on Track to Break the Record for the Most Named Storms
• Who Decides Hurricane Names?
• What Hurricanes Can Dredge Up: Coffins, Canoes and Creatures
• Canoe Found after Hurricane Irma Eyed as Piece of Florida Histor…
I Say Ouch!
• Tripp and Tyler Engage in a Hilarious Conversation Full of the Typical Faux Pas That Many People Make
• Funny Examples of Awful Language Usage
• What Do You Call a Small Piece of Wood Under the Skin?
• ‘A Language We Use to Say Sentimental Things’: How Shoegaze Took over Asia
• Found: The Oldest Example…
Living Color
• The Color of Feeling Better
• A Nostalgic Look at Crayons
• Meet Crayola’s Newest Crayon Color: Bluetiful
• Why There Are so Few Words for Blue
• Dulux’s Colour of the Year, Heart Wood, Soothes Against the ‘Instability’ of the World
• The Real Difference Between Warm and Cool Colors