language

HEY DUDE

Robert Lane Greene — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:02:31 +0000

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

THE RISE OF "AWESOME"

Robert Lane Greene — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 10:53:17 +0000

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 »

ON LANGUAGE NERDS AND NAGS

Robert Lane Greene — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:11:36 +0000

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

OMG, ETC

Robert Lane Greene — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:17:37 +0000

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 »

SHOULD YOU TEACH YOUR KIDS CHINESE?

Robert Lane Greene — Fri, 07 May 2010 20:30:13 +0000

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

BEDSIDE TABLE: WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

Robert Lane Greene — Wed, 05 May 2010 05:01:03 +0000

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

ON BOOTSTRAPS

Alexander Ewing — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:34:34 +0000

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 »

LIVING IN BABEL

Gideon Lichfield — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:31:30 +0000

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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