linguistics
-
English Is Surprisingly Devoid Of Emotionally Positive Words
While investigating non-English words associated with positive emotions and concepts, a British researcher recently discovered 216 foreign words for which there is no English translation.
-
Hillary Clinton’s Email About Emoji Is The Best Hillary Clinton Email
The US State Department just released over 7000 of Hillary Clinton’s emails. In one exchange with her senior advisor Phillipe Reines, the presidential hopeful has a very important question: “on this new berry can I get smiley faces?”
-
Icelandic Has The Best Words For Technology
When the University of Iceland got its first computer in 1964, Icelandic did not have a word for “computer”. So the guardians of the language invented one: tölva — a fusion of tala (number) and völva (prophetess) that adds up to the wonderfully poetic “prophetess of numbers”.
-
The Mysterious Origins Of 21 Tech Terms
We use 21st century tech terms like hashtag, stream and mouse with casual indifference, but how did these words get to be so commonplace in our everyday vernacular? We know the origins of Superman (kryptonite), Spider Man (radioactive spider), and Batman (rich boy’s revenge) but not “podcast”, “spam”, or even “hacker”. So I looked at…