Sublime
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French eventually overcame the lack of words in scientific and technical fields and contributed many inventions and innovations to the world. But the point is that in order for languages to evolve, they must have the flexibility to adapt. Any measures that try to constrain flexibility risk the language becoming unusable and eventually extinct.
Shane Parrish • The Great Mental Models Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry and Biology
From Donald Knuth “The language in which we express our ideas has a strong influence on our thought processes.”
Thankfully, the French are forgiving of foreigners who mangle their beautiful language, because they know it’s a challenge, even for them. I doubt many conversations at dinner parties in other countries turn to discussing grammar, as they do in France. Most online comments on U.S. newspaper websites discuss the content. The French debate if the ver
... See moreDavid Lebovitz • L'Appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home
common to all is the most singular characteristic of the new spoken-written language of social media: brevity. This is a land where vowels are dropped, phrases condensed to acronyms, sounds reduced to numbers, and most punctuation forgotten.
Susie Dent • Dent's Modern Tribes: The Secret Languages of Britain
Language Dept. - Language Dept.
languagedept.com
Redundancy—inefficient by definition—serves as the antidote to confusion. It provides second chances. Every natural language has redundancy built in;
James Gleick • The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
If the word ends in a consonant, add ing or ed, with no hyphen (e.g., computering, computered
Emmy J. Favilla • A World Without "Whom"
At my own workplaces, the New Age–speak mingled recklessly with aviation metaphors ( holding pattern, the concept of discussing something at the 30,000-foot level), verbs and adjectives shoved into nounhood ( ask, win, fail, refresh, regroup, creative, sync, touchbase ), nouns shoved into verbhood ( whiteboard, bucket ), and a heap of nonwords that
... See moreMolly Young • Why do corporations speak the way they do?
