I was building some flatpack furniture the other day (my life is so glamorous) when I came across an interesting example of how not to write technical documentation. Drill a hole in part A and insert part B once you have ensured part C has been aligned after its connection to A. Most people can handle reading a whole sentence to figure out what's going on. But, after a tiring day of building, it is somewhat annoying having to juggle instructions into actions. Most readers will assume…
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I've been thinking about programming languages and their design. In her book about the divergence of the English and American languages, Lynne Murphy asks this question: wouldn’t it be great if language were logical and maximally efficient? If sentences had only as many syllables as strictly needed? If each word had a single, unique meaning? If there were no homophones, so we’d not be able to mix up dear and deer or two and too? That got me thinking about the creativity which can be exp…
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It's one of those pithy little quotes which reveals so much about our two cultures. The average Briton considers anything more than a 45 minute trip a bit of a schelp, whereas Americans will seemingly drive half a day just to get some ribs from that one place they like. Conversely, I went to school opposite a church which pre-dated Columbus's invasion of North America - and I doubt that was the oldest church in the town! But who said it first? Oh, there are a variety of sites online which…
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Way back in the 1990s, my family visited the USA. It seemed at every single large shop there was a person stood inside whose sole job was to say "Welcome to STORENAME! How are you doing today? We're so pleased to have you shop with us!" - their face plastered with an enormous grin. It was quite the culture shock. To us, it felt weird, insincere, and creepy. But, like the over-enthusiastic whooping and cheering from US sitcom audiences, it seemed to be an accepted part of the culture. A few…
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Perhaps you are aware of the Mandela Effect - a psychological phenomenon where you are convinced you remember something which never actually happened. This, combined with the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon - where you suddenly start noticing something unusual - can cause extreme cognitive dissonance. What does the verb "to trespass" mean to you? I always thought it was the act of going somewhere prohibited or, in archaic terms, to do wrong against someone. But over the last few days, I've s…
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The "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon" is that weird experience where you learn of a new word or phrase and then suddenly see it crop up everywhere. At the time of writing, the Wikipedia entry for "frequency illusion" said: The name "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon" was coined in 1994 by an online message board user, who, after mentioning the name of the German terrorist group Baader-Meinhof once, kept noticing it, and posted on the forum about their experience. This led to other readers of the message…
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Who "owns" the English language? Do you cringe when you see "centre" spelled (or spelt) "center" (or vice-versa)? Which Americanisms do you think are super awesome? This book asks us a simple question: What if, instead of worrying about the “ruination” of English by young people, jargonistas, or Americans, we celebrated English for being robust enough to allow such growth and variety? Without evolution, languages stagnate and die. Without a vast corpus of work, which responds to changing c…
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This guy's probably right - but there's no need for him to be such a dick about it. The book is about the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis which, simply put, says that the language people use changes the way they experience the world. McWhorter thinks this is bullshit - and goes through his reasoning in painstaking detail. It occasionally veers into personal attacks, which I found a little odd. K. David Harrison has posited that depicting language diversity as marvelously random, as I have, is “…
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One of the joys of working with a diverse set of people from all around the world, is that English idioms are a constant source of bemusements. "It's raining cats and dogs" is quickly mapped to the more poetic "Es gießt Schusterjungs". Recently, I mentioned how our team had a "get-out-of-jail-free card". Whereupon a person messaged me privately to ask what I meant, and if there was any real risk of us going to prison? I started explaining about the board game Monopoly. "Ah! In my language, …
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To be clear - I don't care about this; I just think it is interesting. Is the word "data" a plural? On a strict reading, yes. Datum is singular, data is its plural. But humans are spongey meatbags who evolve language. And there will always be a tension between traditionalists and modernists. So, I took a serious, scientific, and accurate Twitter poll. Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentData:#UKGC21is: (231)231are: (72)72❤️ 3💬 12♻️ 011:41 - Thu 21 January 2021 It's amazing how many people are …
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I am not a linguist, nor an expert on gender. I'm just trying to muddle my way through this confusing world the same as anyone else. The English language is adaptable. We'll happily bodge words together to make new ones, verb our nouns, and grammar-flex to the point of breaking. It's a fun language! English is (mostly) genderless. The French have le chat and la table - because cats are boys and tables are girls, apparently. In Portuguese, the boys are "os meninos" but the girls are "as…
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Perhaps you've heard of Micro-Aggressions. They're the steady drip-drip-drip of poison which gradually wears you down. "Where are you really from?" or "I can't pronounce your name, can I call you Jo?" or "Your lot are good at running, right?" or "You're clever, for a ...". Individually, they are tiny pinpricks of discrimination. None of them large enough to be worth kicking up a fuss. Each one easy to dismiss as a faux-pas. When I experience them it's a painful reminder that some people think …
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