Author Spotlight: John McWhorter
Sometimes, a writer comes along who temporarily takes over your thoughts. Their words stick in your head, simultaneously comforting and challenging you. One goes through a period of reading every…
EIBF 2022: Noam Chomsky, ‘Dissent Across the Decades’
It’s a wonder at this stage in his career that 93-year old Linguist Noam Chomsky is able to show up to any event at all, let alone engage in an…
Let’s talk about prescriptivists
I learned English when I was 11. It took me about six months to pick up, really, because I moved to the United States, enrolled in a regular American school…
Can language rewire the way we think?
Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction movie, Arrival, explores the possibilities of the long-standing and controversial theory that language shapes the way you think. When an alien spaceship lands on Earth, a…
U wot m8? How the internet is altering our language
Modern technology, and the impact it has on language, has been the subject of increasing debate over the past two decades. Smart phones and their associated messaging systems are a…