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Babel No More
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 309

Babel No More

A “fascinating” (The Economist) dive into the world of linguistics that is “part travelogue, part science lesson, part intellectual investigation…an entertaining, informative survey of some of the most fascinating polyglots of our time” (The New York Times Book Review). In Babel No More, Michael Erard, “a monolingual with benefits,” sets out on a quest to meet language superlearners and make sense of their mental powers. On the way he uncovers the secrets of historical figures like the nineteenth-century Italian cardinal Joseph Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages, as well as those of living language-superlearners such as Alexander Arguelles, a modern-day pol...

Bye Bye I Love You
  • Language: en

Bye Bye I Love You

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 2025-02-11
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  • Publisher: MIT Press

A beautiful and intimate exploration of first and last words—and the many facets of how language begins and ends—from a pioneering language writer. With our earliest utterances, we announce ourselves—and are recognized—as persons ready for social life. With our final ones, we mark where others must release us to death’s embrace. In Bye Bye I Love You, linguist and author Michael Erard explores these phenomena, commonly called “first words” and “last words,” uncovering their cultural, historical, and biological entanglements and honoring their deep private significance. Erard draws from personal, historical, and anthropological sources to provide a sense of the breadth of be...

Babel No More
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 322

Babel No More

Assesses historical "hyperpolyglot" linguistic high achievers who demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for learning and speaking languages, and explains the sources of such abilities and what it reveals about the nature of memory and language.

Um. . .
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 306

Um. . .

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 2007-08-21
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  • Publisher: Anchor

Essential reading for talkers and listeners of all stripes: An original, entertaining, and surprising book that investigates verbal blunders: what they are, what they say about those who make them, and how and why we've come to judge them. “An enjoyable tour of linguistic mishaps.” —The New York Times Book Review Um... is about how you really speak, and why it's normal for your everyday speech to be filled with errors—about one in every ten words. In this charming, engaging account of language in the wild, linguist and writer Michael Erard also explains why our attention to some blunders rises and falls. Where did the Freudian slip come from? Why do we prize "umlessness" in speaking—and should we? And how do we explain the American presidents who are famous for their verbal stumbles?

Um. . .
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 322

Um. . .

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 2008-08-12
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  • Publisher: Anchor

Essential reading for talkers and listeners of all stripes: An original, entertaining, and surprising book that investigates verbal blunders: what they are, what they say about those who make them, and how and why we've come to judge them. “An enjoyable tour of linguistic mishaps.” —The New York Times Book Review Um... is about how you really speak, and why it's normal for your everyday speech to be filled with errors—about one in every ten words. In this charming, engaging account of language in the wild, linguist and writer Michael Erard also explains why our attention to some blunders rises and falls. Where did the Freudian slip come from? Why do we prize "umlessness" in speaking—and should we? And how do we explain the American presidents who are famous for their verbal stumbles?

Mezzofanti's Gift
  • Language: en

Mezzofanti's Gift

Multilingualism is on the rise - in the coming decades, as many as two billion people will learn English as a second language. The next stage up from multilingualism is the domain of the 'hyperpolyglot' or 'superlearner'- someone who claims to know at least six languages. But what does it mean to 'know' a language? Can a person claim to speak a language fluently if it isn't their mother tongue? What role does culture play in learning languages? In this accessible and enthralling book, Erard discusses the upper limits of the brain's capacity to learn languages and sheds light on the 'hyperpolyglot' phenomenon, from the Italian cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who was said to speak as many as WC seventy-two languages to the 'superlearners' of the 21st century.

Culture Is Not Always Popular
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 241

Culture Is Not Always Popular

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 2019-01-01
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  • Publisher: MIT Press

A collection of writing about design from the influential, eclectic, and adventurous Design Observer. Founded in 2003, Design Observer inscribes its mission on its homepage: Writings about Design and Culture. Since its inception, the site has consistently embraced a broader, more interdisciplinary, and circumspect view of design's value in the world—one not limited by materialism, trends, or the slipperiness of style. Dedicated to the pursuit of originality, imagination, and close cultural analysis, Design Observer quickly became a lively forum for readers in the international design community. Fifteen years, 6,700 articles, 900 authors, and nearly 30,000 comments later, this book is a com...

Scientific Babel
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 424

Scientific Babel

English is the language of science today. No matter which languages you know, if you want your work seen, studied, and cited, you need to publish in English. But that hasn’t always been the case. Though there was a time when Latin dominated the field, for centuries science has been a polyglot enterprise, conducted in a number of languages whose importance waxed and waned over time—until the rise of English in the twentieth century. So how did we get from there to here? How did French, German, Latin, Russian, and even Esperanto give way to English? And what can we reconstruct of the experience of doing science in the polyglot past? With Scientific Babel, Michael D. Gordin resurrects that ...

The Anthropology of Childhood
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 549

The Anthropology of Childhood

Enriched with anecdotes from ethnography and the daily media, this revised edition examines family structure, reproduction, profiles of children's caretakers, their treatment at different ages, their play, work, schooling, and transition to adulthood. The result is a nuanced and credible picture of childhood in different cultures, past and present.

In the Town All Year 'Round
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 72

In the Town All Year 'Round

Pictures depict busy people in a town throughout the year.