linguistics

Big Question

Why Are the Letters in ABC Order?

The alphabet, as best as historians can tell, got its start in ancient Egypt sometime in the Middle Bronze Age, but not with the Egyptians. They were, at the time, writing with a set of hieroglyphs that were used both as representations of the consonants of their language and as logographs (a logograph or logogram is a letter, symbol, or sign used to represent an entire word). While the glyphs were sort of alphabetic in nature, they were used more for their logographic component than as “letters.”... READ ON

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18 Metaphors & Analogies Found in Actual Student Papers (Or Not—But They're Still Hilarious)

Okay, so we can't be 100% positive that these are from "actual" student papers. [Update: They are not.] Let us know which is the best (worst?) in the comments... READ ON

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The Bodacious Letter B

Always a bridesmaid and never a bride, B is the also-ran, the second best, the afterthought, the sidekick to the alphaletter A. When things fall apart, we go to Plan B; we’ll watch B-movies with B-list actors on basic cable if we can’t fall asleep; we’ll pass on grade-B meats and eggs and B-rated bonds. Despite its second banana billing, B has shown some incredible staying power. The oldest B appears, like A, in one of the earliest known alphabet inscriptions, discovered in central Egypt and... READ ON

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Language Pet Peeves

When it comes to the way people use the English language, I've got a pantload of pet peeves. For instance, how has cavalry become calvary, comfortable, comfterble, strategy, stragety and introduce, interduce? Blasphemy, right? I mean it's one thing if my soon-to-be-four-year-old son pronounces reptile, repatile, but when did adults start pronouncing realtor, realator? Even worse than these mispronunciations (because, of course, I'm joking around, right?), is the constant employment of the phrase,... READ ON

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The Late Movies: Lin-Manuel Miranda Raps on The Electric Company

Lin-Manuel Miranda came to my attention when he rapped about Alexander Hamilton. Miranda is the Tony award-winning star, writer, and composer of In the Heights -- and he has what we call in the business "mad skills." For tonight's nerdy kid-friendly goodness, here's Miranda dropping educational pronunciation-related rhymes on PBS's The Electric Company. If you have young kids, get them to the computer now. (He's accompanied by Shock, a regular The Electric Company, who's a surprisingly good beatboxer.)... READ ON

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The Elusive Hapax Legomenon

A hapax legomenon (often abbreviated just to hapax) is a word which appears only once -- in a language, a single written work, or the entire body of work of a given author. According to Wikipedia: "Hapax legomenon is a transliteration of Greek ???? ?????????, meaning '(something) said (only) once.'" Hapaxes are everywhere, particularly in historical texts -- indeed, many of the remaining untranslated hieroglyphs appear to be hapaxes, possibly because we lack enough text to see them more frequently --... READ ON

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Why Do We Call It "Xmas"?

Lots of people think that the X in Xmas is a secular watering down of the word Christ. You know, "we love to celebrate the holiday but don’t believe in Jesus," sort of thing. However, that's not the origin of the X. The X actually comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of ???????. And if that’s all Greek to you, ???????, of course, means Christ. More from mental_floss... The Wonderful Story of Louis Armstrong’s First Christmas Tree * A White House Christmas! Starring... READ ON

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A Film About Words, Using Very Few Words

Here's a delightful video to fill three minutes of your day: Words by Will Hoffman and Daniel Mercadante. In it, a series of words (play, blow, break, split, tear, run, fly,ï»¿ fall, light, space) are visually represented in different ways, each leading into the next. It's a sort of visual homonym, and a game in which you try to figure out which word is the current one. Nerdy and fun: See also: this episode of RadioLab, entitled "Words." (Via the MaximumFun.org... READ ON

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Scrabble Word Records

Here at the _floss, we love Scrabble and have written about it often. Among others, there's Stacy's post on Scrabble words that will help you win, my post on how Alfred Mosher Butts, inventor of Scrabble, couldn't spell very well, and even a quiz by Jason Plautz testing your knowledge of 2-letter words. One of the topics we haven't really covered, however, are those big point-getters—the words that earn the most points and the people who've played "˜em. But before... READ ON

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7 False Acronyms

Sure, everyone knows that SCUBA stands for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. And right, most of us know that AWOL stands for Absent Without Leave. But what about all those supposed acronyms, like Golf and Posh, that aren't really acronyms at all. Here are seven false ones you need to know"¦ at least to be able to impress friends at parties. 1. Posh Supposed Meaning: Port out starboard... READ ON