The Genetic Drift of Baby Names
Why do some names fall out of fashion, and how is the study of names like the study of genetics?
Why do some names fall out of fashion, and how is the study of names like the study of genetics?
Why are English spellings so inconsistent and weird?
A new paper uses AI to decipher sperm whale vocalizations.
Which words do you mispronounce? Or rather, which words that you mispronounce today will eventually be “correct”?
If you’re reading this, odds are you know the 26 letters in the English alphabet. But do you know how they came to their current forms?
AI’s potential for translation makes science fiction gadgets an increasingly likely reality. But how did English become the dominant global language, and just what do we mean by “English”?
Why do some contractions work and others don’t?
Why are companies so effective at ruining slang?
We are off today and tomorrow for the US Independence Day holiday. Also included, a song that hews carefully to archaic rules about prepositions at the end of sentences.
What will the “grey goo” of AI generated text do to us? A scholar of writing and technology talks with us about AI and Large Language Models.
Richard de Grijs comes to grips with his field’s use of potentially offensive language.
Annoying business jargon has a sneaky habit of becoming ingrained in everyday language.
Some etymological fun — English words that seem like they should be related but aren’t.
More language nerdery, probing the origins of the pairing of the letters Q and U in English.
The impact of the Germanic and Romance language roots that led to modern English.