Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally)
John McWhorteramazon.com
Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally)
Words are, after all, our communal brain. As a group, we point at things and say corresponding words until our minds and brains tune to each other—an orchestra of minds so immense that the violist in Los Angeles can’t possibly hear the violinist in Pennsylvania, and yet here we are, playing in perfect harmony and perfect rhythm all the same. It is
... See moreGabriel Wyner • Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It
Often, words and phrases shift their meanings so much that they bear only the most tenuous relation to what they originally signified. The evolution of words and meanings can be a fascinating, beautiful thing. I
Frank Luntz • Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear
A new idea can be spread quickly if someone can explain it and communicate it to others before they have to discover it themselves. But the chief advantage of language is not communication but autogeneration. Language is a trick that allows the mind to question itself; a magic mirror that reveals to the mind what the mind thinks; a handle that turn... See more
Kevin Kelly • What Technology Wants
Languages change and evolve organically. But it is perhaps paradoxically necessarily that languages must remain mostly unchanging — mostly common between their speakers — such that change can be recognized and contextualized, rather than simply disorienting.
Sacha Meyers • Bitcoin Is Venice: Essays on the Past and Future of Capitalism
