The language you choose matters less than simply choosing it and sticking to it, so donโt be afraid to try anything from French to Fulani! Letโs explore the benefits of learning a language late in life, from staving off dementia to improving memory and neuroplasticity. The Benefits of Multilingualism Languages are diverse, and many people choose to learn more [...]
Honeybees might not seem very chatty, but these nectar-seeking marvels of the natural world have an astonishingly complex communication system. They donโt rely on vocalizations or written symbols like humans do, yet they convey detailed information about food sources, threats, and hive coordination with remarkable precision. Their most famous method? The waggle dance, a sophisticated movement that functions as [...]
How Illiteracy Shaped Seafaring Language Anyone who has enjoyed literature and films portraying life at sea may have quickly noticed that the ship environment is alive with unfamiliar jargon. Words such as โbosunโ and โstaysโlโ might fill the air, but upon looking in a dictionary, no such words seem to exist! The reason for many of the warped pronunciations [...]
One of the often overlooked features of language is that itโs constantly evolving and adapting. A fascinating aspect of this evolution is the incorporation of "untranslatable" words from various languages into English. These loanwords fill lexical gaps, offering nuanced expressions previously lacking in English. Thereโs an important reason for these additions. At any given time, a language can adequately [...]
Controlled Natural Languages Seaspeak was created in 1985 to standardize how sailors and others on naval vessels communicated with each other. When a ship from an English-speaking location such as the United States would like to ask for assistance from a passing ship from, for instance, Brazil, the language barrier can quickly become a problem. Seaspeak allows these ships [...]
The psychology of marketing has been a fascinating area of study for over a century. One crucial aspect of marketing psychology (particularly when looking at luxury brands) is the use of language. Detecting the unique vocabulary choices and tone of a luxury advertising campaign or sales pitch can be meticulous if youโre unfamiliar with these techniques. However, once youโve been [...]
Kitchen staff need to be able to communicate not just about who is doing what but also how the clientele are behaving. Because language adapts to its speakersโ needs, this has resulted in a vocabulary tailored toward obscuring meaning from those not familiar with the culinary environment. In this way, restaurant workers can convey valuable information without stirring up [...]
The kitchen is a place of community and contentmentโso itโs no surprise that throughout history, itโs also been a haven for tomfoolery. While much of todayโs kitchen slang has arisen as a response to the stressful working conditions back of house and the potential problems guests cause in the front, some remnants of this comical side of the culinary landscape [...]
Social media intro: Have you ever watched a man sweep a woman off her feet, taking her completely by surprise as he proclaims that he โcanโt help himselfโ? Or perhaps youโve heard a girl tell her boyfriend that her life would be meaningless without him by her side. While these utterances can be signs of affection and love, they can [...]
What does laughter sound like? If your answer is that it goes, โHahaha,โ then youโre very likely an English speaker (oh the horror). But why would that be the case? Doesnโt laughter sound the same across the world? Sure, in a certain way it does. Human beings always know when another person is laughing, regardless of their cultural or [...]
