Category Archives: Media

Robin Williams, suicide, and “getting it”

Robin Williams, who starred in many formative movies of my childhood and released comedy that had my high-school friends and I in stitches, took his own life this week. He’d struggled with alcohol and drug addition, and severe depression, and … Continue reading

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On Linguistics and Public Outreach

Earlier in the week A couple weeks ago, I posted three questions about science communication in the field of linguistics: Who is the Carl Sagan or Neil DeGrasse Tyson of linguistics? In other words, who do we have in linguistics … Continue reading

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Pet peeve—the YA Literary Love Triangle

Small rant ahead.

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The Washington Post has a very odd definition of “understandability.”

Tū, mewom klneudhi! So pūr tosmōi senei manei dō. Negwrias kwṛmis apo bhergod deukdhi, tod mātrei dō. Ne askoisu spyeudhi! That’s a pseudo-Proto-Indo-European version of what the WaPo claims is a sentence that could be understood across 150 centuries. Did … Continue reading

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Fiction and the Language of Conspiracy

Maybe it’s getting worse, maybe we’re just hearing about it more. In the wake of the recent bombings at the Boston Marathon and the ensuing manhunt, the weird part of the Internet has been more excitable than usual. In a … Continue reading

Posted in Language, Media, Skepticism | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

An infidel watches the History Channel’s “The Bible”

Count me among the nonbelievers. Now an atheist, I was raised a kind of vaguely-observant Hindu in a place where Christianity was shoved down your throat nearly 24/7. Needless to say, my sympathy for Christian thought these days is anemic … Continue reading

Posted in Media, Religion | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments