It’s the Vikings who trashed English. Not just the English people, with all that raping and pillaging back in the day, but the actual language itself, says Columbia University linguist John McWhorter, author of What Language Is and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue. As languages go, English is pretty simple minded. No T-V distinction (polite pronouns […]

Last time we watched CSI Translation Guy, he had made the outrageous claim that Lewis Carroll discovered the origins of the first human tongue in the furrowed brows of readers puzzling over his nonsensical verse. Call it word-feel, a sense of the rightness of a word, or a feel for what that might mean even […]

Some people get hooked on animal attraction. All stance and glance and scent and posture, because when it comes to love, those base instincts can get you pretty far, maybe all the way. But is that any way to build a lasting relationship with that certain significant other? Surely there is more to the chemistry […]