Apparently, babies are tuned in to language from the moment they’re born, and possibly earlier. A recent study suggests that even if they can’t understand or form specific words, newborns recognize the intonation of their parents’ tongue and try to replicate its peculiar melody.
Here’s the article at NPR, which also includes the original broadcast audio and demonstrations of the differences between French and German babies’ intonation.
And just in case you’re still curious, here’s a fairly in-depth analysis of that same study from the Language Log blog at University of Pennsylvania.
Alfred the Great: Proud to know his language lived on ... sort of.
Latin’s not a dead language … not really. It never completely disappeared, but morphed into a bunch of other languages like Italian and Romanian. Like Anglo-Saxon getting sculpted over the centuries to give us English. And the process is easy to see – think about Shakespeare’s English and you can see how much change can occur in a measly five hundred years.
But there are a lot of languages deader than Latin. (“Deader?” Yeah, check out this post on absolutes.) And they’re dying faster than ever before. According to this article, approximately 90% of the world’s 7,000 languages will die by the end of this century.
This is from the movie I Love You, Man, where the main character, Peter, pronounces the name of his favorite movie in a decidedly un-American way. Maybe Chocolat should be said the way he insists, but what about other foreign words?
Do you go to a bakery and ask for a KWAsahn?
(You know what it sounds like, so stop rolling your eyes at my attempt to type out a French pronunciation.)
You probably wouldn’t do that unless you were traipsing through Pah-ree. So most Americans will ask for a kruh-sahnt, even knowing that it’s a French word, and probably knowing how they pronounce it.
It’s Banned Books Week. So in celebration, let’s look at censorship, how politically correct speech is ruining schools and why euphemisms are silly.
Censored words
Does anyone really consider vertically challenged a good alternative to short? Does old really carry such a negative connotation to require us to remove it from our speech?
Some people think so. This article outlines how committees have banned words like bookworm and blind from US textbooks in the interest of sensitivity.
I think it’s ridiculous. Not just because it’s easy to see how being politically correct can be taken too extremes (the article uses the example of The Older Person and the Water to sanitize Hemingway’s famous novella The Old Man and the Sea). And not just because too often this seems to be an effort to protect groups that really feel no need to be protected (many people who can’t hear prefer the term deaf over hearing impaired, even though the former has been stigmatized as politically incorrect). But also because euphemisms rarely stay euphemistic.
After a post focusing on advertising and marketing, it’s nice to have a segue back into linguistics.
In the comments from that post, Brian O’Rourke recommended checking out the show “Mad Men.” Though I’ve never seen it, it apparently centers around advertising in the 1960s and comes highly recommended.
Then I found this article from The New Republic. Author and linguist John McWhorter questions whether the speech patterns affected by the characters in “Mad Men” are really genuine, and whether people really talked the way we think they talked fifty years ago.
I usually lean my posts towards writing tips or linguistic issues I find interesting. This time, however, I’d like to address an issue that comes up now and again in businesses promotions across the globe: Do we need a copywriter?
We all know that when our moms started saying “rad,” it was time to find the next cool word. And we got a few good years out of rad before that happened. But now, the internet is spreading slang to more people faster than ever, which is making the cool words’ life cycles much shorter.
Basically, once slang is identified by outsiders as the cool new words, they’re not cool anymore. So as a warning, please remember that if you learn a new slang word from a dictionary, be careful using it. Chances are good that if it’s defined as a cool new word, it really isn’t.
Defining who’s an in-law seems pretty straight forward, right? We all know who our mother-in-law is — it’s our spouse’s mother.*
But what about a brother-in-law?
I got in a discussion a little while ago about the definition of brothers- and sisters-in-law. And it seems that standards for what qualifies someone varies.
A fair number of people I’ve spoken to say the title of brother-in-law only applies to your sister’s husband or your spouse’s brother.
Others say that your spouse’s sister’s husband also qualifies.
But don’t look it up!
I want to know what your natural understanding is. What your practical definition is for how you’d really use it.
*Additional attributes that may indicate or define a mother-in-law are up for debate and may be inappropriate for children.
Can something be more than perfect? A little bit perfect? Or, if something’s one of a kind, can it be more one of a kind?
If you’re taking these ideas literally, the answer is no. Perfect, by definition, means there’s nothing better to be had. It’s as good as it can possibly be.
Perfect is what’s known as an absolute. Perfect is perfect; it doesn’t come in degrees of perfectness.
But what gets tricky, is that in everyday speech, absolutes like perfect get modified all the time. So, you may ask, is it ok to say “more perfect?” Keep reading →
In a recent article I found on the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, the author argues for women ridding their speech of “hedges.”
Hedges are those little apologetic words and phrases we insert into our speech. For example:
I’m sorry, but …
Well, actually, I think …
In my humble opinion …
The idea is that these little apologies soften your speech and indicate a low level of confidence. And while the article specifically talks to women (it originally appeared in Redbook), this is something men should take note of, as well.
But my question is this: are hedge words actually bad?
Does hedging your speech actually give an appearance of weakness? Or instead, does it indicate a respect for the other speakers and offer some courtesy to help society run a little more smoothly?
This article (the one I referenced above) advocates giving the ax to hedge words and putting more strength into your speech.
This article from the Macmillan Dictionary Blog suggests that hedge words may be pretty vital to communication and us all getting along.
Personally, I think it’s a matter of degree. We all know some über-hedging folks who seem to apologize even as they order their lunch. But then there are others who wouldn’t notice a hedge word if it kicked them in the teeth because they’re stubbornly barreling through conversations heedless and disrespectful of anyone around them.
So I’d suggest moderating your hedges. You needn’t preface every idea you have with “This may sound dumb, but …” And at the same time, no one likes it when people bully their way over everyone else’s ideas like Genghis Khan.
Be firm, be confident, and be polite. And just as importantly – be aware of how you speak. Knowing to what degree you use hedge words will go a long way toward projecting the image you want through your speech.
What do you think? Keep the hedge words? Or ditch ‘em for stronger language?
After a post focusing on advertising and marketing, it’s nice to have a segue back into linguistics.