If you have been following along with our selfie series, you already know that selfies have changed significantly over time, and the word itself has seen changes over many years, too. Nowadays, a “selfie” is an image taken of at least the head and shoulders, typically with the arm extended in frame as the person captures themselves. This [...]
In our previous article on the history of the selfie, we traced humanity's journey from its first unconscious self-representation to the modern concept of self-portraiture. But the form of the selfie is not the only thing that has changed over that time. In fact, the word “selfie” itself is a very modern adjustment, and it reflects how language [...]
If you read an autobiography or a personal journal, you likely assume that you are reading the words as the author intended them. If the work has been translated, surely the content sticks as close as possible to the original, right? You may be surprised. Translation comes with risks, and one of the most salient is the threat [...]
The terms used for money (and counting in general) are shaped by deep cultural, historical, and value-based influences across many regions of the world. We discussed this further in this series’ first entry on the linguistic origins of money terms. But did you know that the language of money goes even deeper? Think of the difference between ten [...]
If you’re familiar with the story of Robin Hood, you’ve 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 place’s history. In fact, many English town and city names [...]
You’ve probably heard the old trope that uncultured people don’t like watching films with subtitles. Or that only seasoned film aficionados can truly enjoy celebrated foreign films like the 1960s Italian classic La Dolce Vita or Japan’s 1954 epic Seven Samurai. It’s no secret that films made in American English culturally dominate the global film industry, with over [...]
Though you may not recognize the name, you’re 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 you’ve 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 [...]
For centuries, immigrant communities have significantly influenced mainstream American culture, whether through culinary practices, art, media, and even the American English dialect through vocabulary, pronunciation, and slang. Jewish communities introduced Yiddish words such as "nosh," "schmuck," and "schlep," while Spanish-speaking communities contributed vocabulary related to the landscape and culture of the Southwest and Latin America. At the [...]
Heritage language speakers often move through the world with a quiet contradiction. The language they grow up hearing and using at home feels deeply familiar, yet it rarely fits the categories institutions rely on to define fluency. This mismatch between lived experience and official labels has consequences, shaping how heritage speakers are perceived and how they come to understand [...]
