cognition

One Slice, One Loaf: The Logic of Measure Words

Ever wondered why you can't say "one rice" in English or "one bread" in Chinese? This post dives into the…

1 month ago

The Grammar of a Bluff: Linguistics at the Poker Table

Beyond the cards and chips, the poker table is a battlefield of language where every action is a speech act.…

1 month ago

Reading Without Breaks: The Cognitive Cost of Scriptio Continua

Ancient scripts were often written as an unbroken stream of letters, a practice known as scriptio continua. This placed an…

1 month ago

The Physics of the Tongue: A Muscular Hydrostat

Your tongue performs incredible feats of precision for speech, all without a single bone. Discover the fascinating science of the…

1 month ago

The ‘Gavagai’ Problem: How We Map Words to Reality

Imagine a speaker in a new language points to a rabbit and says "gavagai." How do you know if it…

1 month ago

How a Phoneme is Born

Language sounds are always in flux, but where do new ones come from? This article explores the fascinating linguistic process…

1 month ago

The Case for Compounding

Behold the German word Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän. Far from being a chaotic jumble of letters, this linguistic titan is a masterclass in…

1 month ago

The Semiotics of a Warning Siren

Ever wonder why a rising and falling wail universally signals an emergency? This post breaks down the semiotics of warning…

1 month ago

Linguistic Exaptation Explained

Did you know that your brain never evolved to read? Instead, it brilliantly repurposed areas meant for object recognition to…

1 month ago

The Phonology of Brand Names

Ever wondered why so many successful brands have names that just *sound* right? From Google to Pepsi, the secret often…

1 month ago

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