Puns, Clichés and Combos don’t stop us communicating

David Wineberg
Nov 4 · 12 min read

The first achievement of language was morality (Religion, which claims ownership of morality, took another fifty to a ninety thousand years to show up). Once people could communicate, they could no longer kill each other at will. Suddenly, the concept of reputation took hold, and everyone had to beware not to trigger rumors. It made Homo sapiens calmer, less violent, and according to John Wrangham (The Goodness Paradox, 2018), led to its actual domestication.

Books on language are all over the spectrum. They range from the fussy (Follow the…

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David Wineberg

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Author, The Straight Dope, or What I learned from my first thousand nonfiction reviews. 16 Essays. www.thestraightdope.net

The Straight Dope

Reviews of books, films, music

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