My family is hosting a couple of our Turkish friends during Thanksgiving. This has given my father ample opportunity for verbal witticism, such as “Since you are from Turkey, will you be bringing the turkey?” Bad puns aside, how did it happen that the country and the bird share the same name?
Wordle is a nifty java applet that lets you make neat designs out of any text or webpage. The above is what I got when I plugged in the Indy blog (click to make it larger).
An Amazonian language brings Noam Chomsky’s theories about universal language into question: In my estimation, this is one of the more intriguing and dramatic academic debates in recent history. The Guardian recently published this overview, and the New Yorker published a longer article a couple of years ago, which you can still read here.
Wordlustitude collects and defines actual Internet nonce-words. Recent entries include “dunderdoof” and “Paula Abdul-usional.” The citations (both real and made-up) are hilarious. This site is funny even if you are not a linguistics geek.
Look under the cut for more linkage…
Prejudice comes from Latin prefix præ-, meaning “before,” and judicium, “judgement” —in other words, a prejudice is a “pre-judgment,” a conclusion reached prior to rational reflection. The word and the attitude it signifies have always had a bad rap; only the most ignorant reactionaries are prejudiced, never ourselves. If we do recognize our own prejudices, we view these as unavoidable vices to be eclipsed in any way possible. But I think it is time to set the record straight, because prejudices are neither inherently bad nor unnatural. We need to address this prejudice against prejudice.
