by wasoxygen

the rules of grammar are sometimes there to make others feel bad about themselves

people believe that following the rules will make your language clearer. That’s sometimes crap. It is often MUCH clearer to put the preposition at the end of the sentence, but the rules say that’s bad.

Chaucer of all people, used both “ask” and “aks” interchangeably. In the United States, Northerners settled on “ask” and Southerners on “aks”. As African Americans migrated from the south, some brought “aks” with them. “Ask” actually comes from the Old English “acsian”. So “ask” yourself why one is superior to the other.

In the late eighteenth century, Benjamin Franklin wrote to Noah Webster, angrily asking why new verbs like “notice”, “advocate”, and “progress” were being made official in the dictionary.

Eskimos do not have more words for snow than other languages.

people do not think in languages like English or French. They think in a language of thought. That language likely looks a bit like other languages, but it’s not the same.

When children learn languages, they get the pronouns wrong for a while. That’s because when a kid hears “you”, it’s referring to the kid. So the kid thinks “you” is himself. That’s why he gets it backward.

#learnnewthings schedule:

January 2016 – Water and growth in California

February – Wine

March – Game theory

April – Cryptography

May – Art history

June – The history of railroads in the U.S.

July – Oceanography

August – Football (strategy and theory)

September – Chaos theory

November – Linguistics