If you have ever paid for something from another country or used currency conversion at the airport, you probably saw some terms youโre not familiar with. Lakh. Man. Yรฌ. You have a concept of how big a million is, but what about these other terms? They all describe a large quantity, but not in the same way. Even [...]
If youโre familiar with the story of Robin Hood, youโve probably heard of Nottingham. Likewise, sports fans will recognize Manchester, home of the Manchester United Football Club. While these town names may seem unrelated, they share one thing in common: an English suffix that reveals something about the placeโs history. In fact, many English town and city names [...]
Though you may not recognize the name, youโre almost certainly familiar with it. The NATO Phonetic Alphabet is a historically established set of 26 words, each assigned to a letter of the English alphabet. The purpose of these words is to eliminate confusion when people are trying to spell words aloud over the telephone or radio. The alphabet [...]
If youโve ever seen the Georgian alphabet, you probably noticed that its letters look unlike those of any other language. Its rounded, flowing letters don't resemble Latin, Greek, or Cyrillic, the alphabet used for Russian. These are the scripts most familiar in Europe and the Western world. What makes Georgian stand apart both linguistically and visually among a [...]
The Language of a Uniform Throughout history, uniforms have communicated significant information without words: where a person comes from, what their job is, and even what you are supposed to think when you see them. In the modern day, this type of non-verbal language is highly curated. Rank A personโs rank in the military describes how they relate to [...]
Long before paper archives or digital databases, an empire stretching across the Andes governed millions of people using nothing more than cords and knots. At first glance, a quipu looks unremarkable. But embedded in its strings is a system of memory that challenges what we think language, writing, and record-keeping can be. What a Quipu Is, and What It [...]
The Language of a Uniform Historically, uniforms around the world have served to identify not only where an individual came from but also the role they performed. Over time, they also acquired additional layers of meaning, signaling social status and, in some cases, aspects of personal identity. Rank One of the most common features of a military uniform is [...]
Every November, millions of Americans sit down to a feast where the turkey takes center stage. But if you were to travel to Turkey, the country, and ask for a "turkey," you wouldnโt get far. The bird we now associate with Thanksgiving is native to North America, not Turkey. So why the name? The answer lies in a tangled web [...]
While English has been the dominant language spoken in the US since the country's founding, Americans have been listening to Spanish-language music since music was recorded, and likely much earlier than that. However, within the last decade, listenership for Spanish-language music has increased by nearly 1,000%, and Spanish has now become the second most listened-to language for music worldwide. [...]
One of the most fascinating aspects of sales and marketing is how a single campaign will yield vastly different results depending on the background of the individual who receives it. While the product itself is likely to go unchanged, how itโs presented and the language used may look and sound drastically different. Careful research will need to be invested [...]
