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- No Easy Answers In Evolution Of Human Language
  Posted by okami
  The evolution of human speech was far more complex than is implied by some recent attempts to link it to a specific gene, says Robert Berwick, professor of computational linguistics at MIT.
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- What Part of ‘Illegal’ Don’t You Understand?
  Posted by Jon from New York Times
  America has a big problem with illegal immigration, but a big part of it stems from the word “illegal.” It pollutes the debate. It blocks solutions. Used dispassionately and technically, there is nothing wrong with it. Used as an irreducible modifier for a large and largely decent group of people, it is badly damaging. And as a code word for racial and ethnic hatred, it is detestable.
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- Brazil's Pirahã Tribe: Living without Numbers or Time
  Posted by Garrett from Spiegel
  The Pirahã people have no history, no descriptive words and no subordinate clauses. That makes their language one of the strangest in the world -- and also one of the most hotly debated by linguists.
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- The Word of the Year
  Posted by Damianmann
  The Oxford University Press made public its word of the year in November: it’s “carbon neutral.”
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- 'Civil' Disobedience Spreads -- 'NYT' Adjusts Language on Iraq
  Posted by Jeff from Editor and Publisher
  Via RawStory: The war in Iraq is, in addition to being a civil war, an occupation, a Baathist insurgency, a sectarian conflict, a front in a war against terrorists, a scene of criminal gangsterism and a cycle of vengeance. We believe 'civil war' should not become reductionist shorthand for a war that is colossally complicated."
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- A Voluble Visit with Two Talking Apes
  Posted by Billbar from NPR
  Two bonobo chimpanzees in Iowa are changing how scientists think about the nature of human language. Kanzi and Panbanisha understand thousands of words. They use sentences, talk on the phone, and they like to gossip.
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- Red-Flag Rhetoric
  Posted by Billbar from Alternet
  When you hear someone pontificating and they preface their conclusion with: ''If I understand it correctly…'' or ''if memory serves…,'' 90 percent of the time the person talking doesn't have a clue what they're talking about. You'll find many examples on popular talk radio, which serves as an echo chamber for minds that haven't had oxygen in quite a while.
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okami
Member since Jul 2008
former US Marine, retired police; now alternately protected and terrorized by gangs of cats
Commerce
Jon
Member since Jul 2008
Jon does technology and communications strategy consulting for environmental nonprofits at ONE/Northwest. He blogs a bit.
Seattle

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