"Big Data" had just as much to do with President Obama’s victory as phrases like "Etch A Sketch" and "47 percent," says linguist Geoff Nunberg. Big Data is also behind anxieties about intrusions on our privacy, whether from the government’s anti-terrorist data sweeps or the ads that track us on the Web.
http://www.npr.org/2012/12/20/167702665/geoff-nunbergs-word-of-the-year-big-data
Jim al-Khalili talks to Steven Pinker, a scientist who’s not afraid of controversy. From verbs to violence, many say his popular science books are mind-changing. He explains why toddlers say “holded” not held and “digged” rather than dug; how children’s personalities are shaped largely by their genes and why, he believes the recent rioters had plenty of self-esteem.
By some estimates, approximately half of all languages currently alive on Earth will become extinct during this century. That’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000-plus tongues, many spoken by only tens or hundreds of people. But what exactly do we lose when a language dies without ever having been documented? Is it equivalent to, say, species extinction? Listen as Bob Garfield and I discuss the race to preserve what is arguably humanity’s most impressive achievement.
Tagged with lexicon valley linguistics language
When The Associated Press said it would no longer condemn the use of the adverb "hopefully" in its style guide, most people shrugged. But the announcement was a red flag to people who have made the adverb the biggest bugaboo of English usage over the past 50 years.
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/30/153709651/the-word-hopefully-is-here-to-stay-hopefully
Tagged with npr language words linguistics
George Bernard Shaw ridiculed the British obsession with class, recognising that its most powerful expression was not in what someone said, but how he or she said it. Using a wealth of archive, we hear how the drive to hide linguistic, geographical roots often went hand in hand with a desire to be seen as part of the metropolitan set and we hear about the post war levelling and the move away from RP.
Tagged with accent rp bbc linguistics language english pronunciation
Remember misunderstanding certain words as a child? Maybe you figured “cat burglars” only stole cats, or assumed guerrilla fighters must be angry apes. Martha and Grant discuss childhood misunderstandings about language. Also this week, Yankee dimes, culch piles, hanging crepe, educational rubrics, and whether the language you speak influences the way you think.
Tagged with language words linguistics
Have you ever been Plutoed (demoted)? Is your inbox clogged with "bacn" (spam by personal request)? Are you a lifehacker (master at optimizing everyday routines)? Jonathon Keats, artist and author of Virtual Words, explains how science and technology influence language, and vice versa.
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/24/132311754/How-Science-and-Technology-Influence-Language
Tagged with science technology vocabulary words lexis corpus spelling internet language linguistics