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39. DEATH TO DOSH - A REQUIEM FOR CASH
15/09/2022
This summer I returned to the 'home country' - post-Brexit, post-Boris and, so it seems, post-cash. From Scotland to the very southwestern tip of England, and from parking fees to pub drinks there was not a coin or a note to be had. It was contactless payments wherever you went. Which made everything easy-peasy, pudding and pie, but also very...
"Change affects the way people speak as inevitably as it does any other area of human life. Language purists do not welcome it, but they can do very little about it." So explained linguist David Crystal in his 2006 book How Language Works, yet the concept of 'purity' remains popular in just about every language. Almost inevitably, the debate...
37. NEED FOR SPEED
12/05/2022
The worst job I ever held was as a driver in the then-emerging realm of largescale food delivery by bike. At the end of each month, we received a ranking of all drivers according to aggregated, speed-related stats - including, for some reason, how long we waited at a restaurant before receiving the food. Appear three times in the bottom...
In February, Chris looked into the democracy of language, the process by which rules evolve through a general willingness to let errors slide. But how about the reverse: the death of words due to a complete lack of usage? According to linguist Morris Swadesh, the languages of 20,000 years from now will retain just 1% of the core vocabulary...
35. DISASTERS, PESTILENCE AND NOW … WAR
02/03/2022
Global warming has led to severe flooding and fires around the world, and the consequences on humans, animals and the environment are only just beginning. While the jury is not out in full, it is straining at the exit door to point the finger at greed and indiscrimination, from the profit-mongering multinationals (Amazon) to denial-posturing...
34. THE DEMOCRACY OF LANGUAGE
16/02/2022
The Oxford English Dictionary defines democracy as:
33. NFT? NON-FUNGIBLE TOKEN, AMIRITE?
12/01/2022
Having just got to grips with the concept and operation of 'blockchain' and 'cryptocurrencies' at the beginning of 2021 - I know because after translating a paper on the subject and editing a further couple of articles, if I ever come across blockchain or bitcoin, I won't have to think 'what is that again?' - I happened to read a...
32. THE COLOUR OF LANGUAGE
16/12/2021
The use of colours to express emotions is pretty universal. Evoking a colour can be a striking way of conveying a vivid impression of the mood or physical appearance of an individual. Green with envy, red with rage, white with fear, feeling blue. All languages do this since colours have strong connotations (even if, in different cultures, colours...
31. TOM, DICK OR HARRY ... OR X Æ A-Xii?
17/11/2021