There are, of course, many complex ethical, environmental, and nutritional reasons for choosing vegetarianism in all its different forms, but we wanted to know—where did the words themselves come from? Who invented veganism? Vegetarianism has been around for a very long time. Some studies of mummified Egyptians show they had vegetarian diets. Historians also date this diet back to Ancient Greek philosophers, and religious sects …
Mathematicians at the University of Vermont have been meddling in a field very far from boring numbers. Earlier this month, they officially declared the English language “optimistic” based on a careful analysis that combined statistics and subtle human evaluation. The researchers, led by assistant professor Chris Danforth, aggregated texts from Twitter,
Last week, we stumbled upon this article from the New York Times’ Frugal Traveler about a language hidden in rural Portugal. In the northeast corner of Portugal, there is a tiny county called Miranda do Douro and in Miranda do Douro many inhabitants do not speak Portuguese, but rather its distant cousin, Mirandese. This region is geographically divided from the rest of Portugal by two …
The popular American sitcom, Modern Family once featured a swearing toddler in an episode. It was not a “fleeting expletive.” The show intentionally included a cursing two-year and bleeped out all swear words. When the show premiered, the New York Times wrote about how accurately it reflected contemporary American families, and that the storylines seemed to be an accurate portrait of what many parents go through. …
Have you ever dreamed of being able to speak dozens of languages? A new book, Babel No More by journalist Michael Erard, traces the history of people who can do just that: hyperpolyglots, people who speak 11 or more languages. Obviously, hyperpolyglotism is a trained skill. No one just wakes up speaking multiple languages, but there may be factors that make it easier. As Erard …
Tonight’s meteor shower has an anachronistic name. It was originally named after the constellation Quadrans Muralis, discovered by Jerome Lalande in 1795. Well, “discover” may be the wrong word. Today, the International Astronomical Union no longer recognizes this constellation, rather the stars that were a part of it are now considered to be parts of other, more widely recognized constellations. Lalande named the constellation “Quadrans Muralis” after …