language | More Intelligent Life

HEY DUDE

Robert Lane Greene traces the rise of an evocative vocative... read more »

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THE RISE OF "AWESOME"

Once it had to do with awe. Now it just means "great". How did "awesome" conquer the world? Robert Lane Greene explains (and reminisces) ... read more »

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ON LANGUAGE NERDS AND NAGS

Grammar rules are far more fluid than most people think. Robert Lane Greene explains why it's okay to split an infinitive ... read more »

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OMG, ETC

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters? Lane Greene looks into the rise of the acronym and its sibling the initialism ... read more »

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SHOULD YOU TEACH YOUR KIDS CHINESE?

While China’s rise is real, Chinese is in no way rising at the same rate. Robert Lane Greene explains why ... read more »

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BEDSIDE TABLE: WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

Robert Lane Greene, The Economist's international correspondent, picks his favourite books about language ... read more »

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- bedside table
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- ISSUES & IDEAS
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ON BOOTSTRAPS

It is apparently noble to pull oneself up by the bootstraps. Alexander Ewing considers the origins of the idiom and also its practicality ... read more »

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LIVING IN BABEL

THE LANGUAGE OF LIFE | March 31st 2008

dickuhne/Flickr

Westerners tend to forget that for much of the world being polyglot has been a necessity for survival. Gideon Lichfield, the Jerusalem correspondent of The Economist, describes his obsession with what is lost in translation ...

From Economist.com*

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- language