cognition

Auditory Masking in the City

Ever wondered why a distant siren can slice through city noise, but you can't hear a friend talking right beside…

1 month ago

The Speech of Second Selves

When a shaman or ritualist speaks in a 'spirit language', it isn't random babbling but a fascinating sociolinguistic performance. Even…

1 month ago

The Typo That Survives Extinction

A scribe's error in a single manuscript can be so influential it gets copied for centuries, becoming the "correct" version.…

1 month ago

AI’s Sign Language Problem

We've taught AI to understand our spoken words, but sign language presents a far greater challenge that goes beyond tracking…

1 month ago

How the Deaf Read Lips: A Feat of Phonetics

Contrary to Hollywood depictions, lip-reading is less like a superpower and more like a high-stakes puzzle with most of the…

1 month ago

The Logic of Back-Formation: From ‘Editor’ to ‘Edit’

Which came first: the editor or the edit? The answer reveals a fascinating linguistic process called back-formation, where we reverse-engineer…

1 month ago

The Grammar of a Menu: How Wording Whets the Appetite

Ever wonder why "Grandma's slow-cooked apple pie" sounds more appealing than just "apple pie"? The secret lies in menu engineering,…

1 month ago

The Two ‘Haves’ of Irish: Possession as a State

Unlike English, the Irish language doesn't have a single verb for "to have." Instead, to say "I have a book",…

1 month ago

Logograms vs. Ideograms: There’s a Difference

Is Chinese a language of "idea-pictures"? Not quite. This common misconception confuses ideograms, which are language-independent symbols for concepts, with…

1 month ago

The Speech of Sleep: Is Somniloquy a Language?

Ever wondered if the mumbles and groans of a sleep-talker are just random noise? We take a linguistic deep dive…

1 month ago

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