On language as an object of scientific investigation — When I tell someone I’m a linguist, a common response is: “how many languages do you speak?” Of course, the term “linguist” has a few different uses and definitions. Colloquially, it is applied to polyglots, and sometimes, to translators. …

Dissecting a Cute New Coinage in English — A recent conversation with a student of mine asking why they lost points on a homework problem went as follows: Me: “This one was a freebie, the answer was given in the lecture…” Student (sighing): “Ugh! Sorry, I must be delulu.” Me: “I’m sorry, you must be what?” They went…

A Brief Exploration of Some English Word-Building Processes — If one is on social media these days (who isn’t?), one may have run into a recent addition to the English lexicon; the Gen Z slang verb “to unalive,” synonymous with the more familiar verb “to kill.” …

The Difference Between Language and Dialect — What is the difference between a dialect and a language? Many of us are used to thinking of a dialect as a quaint version of a language, typically associated with some particular geographical region of the country where the dialect of the country’s “language” is spoken. (Presumably, some other region…

A Very Brief Introduction to Linguistic Pragmatics — Grammar and meaning are distinct, though related aspects of language. Consider the following sentence: Me Tarzan. This sentence is ungrammatical in English. But we all know what it means. We would translate it into grammatical English as “I am Tarzan,” or perhaps “My name is Tarzan.” There can also be…

On A Fake Rule of English and How it Wastes Our Precious Time — Space, the final frontier These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise, its continuing mission to explore strange new worlds to seek out new life and new civilizations to boldly go where no one has gone before (Intro spiel for Star Trek, The Next Generation) Despite what your favorite English…

How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Language Change — A common misconception about language is the idea that kids, these days, are ruining English or “dumbing it down.” The kids in question these days, The Year of our Lord, 2023, are Generation Z (“Gen Z” for short), born roughly between 1995–2015 or so. Gen Z is indeed changing English…

Why the Quest is Doomed to Failure — What is the longest word in English? Some candidates commonly proferred in reply to this question are: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (from Disney’s Mary Poppins) Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (Made-up word for lung disease) Antidisestablishmentarianism (Actually has a meaning) Of these three candidates, pneuomonoultra… etc. is the longest in the above list, as one can tell…

Addressing Some Common Myths About Signed Languages — The vast majority of the world’s languages are spoken languages, relying on a vocal/auditory channel. There are also signed languages, used primarily by deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals, relying on a gestural/visual mode of communication. A common misconception about signed language is that signed languages are not “real languages” like French…