Allusionist 60: Zillions
They look like numbers. They sound like numbers. You kinda know they are numbers. But they're not actually numbers. Linguistic anthropologist Stephen Chrisomalis explains what's going on with indefinite hyperbolic…
Grandmothers have the best curse words
two highlights: we hold swear words in a different part of the brain than the rest of language. We often don’t think of the literal meaning of common swear words…
Dialect versus language — what’s the big deal?
There are many rubrics that people cite as indicators of a dialect versus a language. Take mutual intelligibility. If two varieties of speech are mutually intelligible, surely they must be…