Have you noticed the seemingly stratospheric rise of the word “so” in recent years? People use it not only as a conjunction or an intensifying adverb—as in “That’s so awesome!”—but also to begin or end sentences in a manner pregnant with implied meaning. So … Bob Garfield and I set out to determine what this sort of “so” might in fact be accomplishing. http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2012/04/lexicon_valley_beginning_and_ending_all_of_our_thoughts_with_so_.html
Lexicon Valley: Beginning and ending all of our thoughts with “so.” - Slate Magazine
Tagged with linguistics grammar lexicon valley bob garfield language english
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Lexicon Valley: How grammatical gender changes our thinking, and how English lost its genders. - Slate Magazine
Does talking about an object as masculine or feminine somehow cause us to think of it that way? In the second part of a Lexicon Valley series about language and gender, Bob Garfield and I discuss the fascinating research by Stanford psychologist Lera Boroditsky involving grammar and perception. We talk also about what may have happened to grammatical gender in English. That’s right, once upon a time we had grammatical gender too. But then we lost it.
Tagged with lexicon valley linguistics language
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Lexicon Valley: Why we keep saying “between you and I.” - Slate Magazine
Do you flinch when someone says “between you and I”? Textbook English tells us it’s ungrammatical, and yet it’s arguably more common than the officially sanctioned “between you and me.” Tennessee Williams, Mark Twain, William Shakespeare—all were guilty of using “I” when the sentence cried out for “me.” Or maybe they weren’t so guilty after all. Bob Garfield and I discuss the oft-uttered, much-maligned “between you and I.”
Tagged with linguistics grammar lexicon valley bob garfield language english
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Lexicon Valley: What it means for a language to have grammatical gender. - Slate Magazine
Listen to Lexicon Valley Episode No. 8: When Nouns Grew Genitals Subscribe in iTunes ∙ RSS feed ∙ Download ∙ Play in another tab ∙ Play in Stitcher Languages all across the world have what’s called grammatical gender, which means simply that nouns get divvied up into different categories or “classes.” Sometimes those…