Month: June 2013
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Bisociation and Conceptual Blending Theory
New Yorker magazine cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff, talks about the anatomy of the New Yorker cartoon and what makes them funny. He cites Arthur Koestler’s idea of bisociation as explained in his Act of Creation as a major influence to his thinking in making choices for which cartoons get accepted into the magazine. Koestler’s book…
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Loanwords and the growth and change of a language
We have truly come to understand that language is usage in the last thirty years. So when someone says that they disapprove of loanwords coming into their language they are really not understanding this point. They are coming from the Old School which thinks grammar (and vocabulary) is perscriptive, not descriptive. English is itself a…
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English is Rough
“We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” James Nicoll
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Living abroad for three years will still only get you half the native speaker vocabulary size
It seems the average non-native speaker of English only has a vocabulary size of about 4,500 words. And over half of these learners will have a vocabulary size of greater than 7,826 words. This is a somewhat depressing picture for language learners considering the worst of native speaker adults still will have a minimum size…
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the embodied
when exactly does one come to understand the embodied mind? concepts wholly dependent, spaces blend in ways possible through the very thing reality is not – that is, the word put simply, your metaphors no longer fool anyone
ghoti 