“Baby needa burpie?! Yeees?? [burp] Oh! WHOOOZa good baby? YOU are! Yeeesssssyouare!” Whether you find this adorable or aggravating, gaggles of parents around the world speak to their infants in singsong “goos” and “gahs.” The style has diverse names, from baby talk and motherese (but what about Dad?) to the neutral and more official-sounding child- or infant- directed speech. Whatever you choose to call it, …
We’ve reached the era of the self-driving car! Congratulations, us. Ford, General Motors, and Volkswagen are all in the autonomous driving game, along with many up-and-comers. Waymo (a division of Alphabet, Google’s holding company) describes theirs as “a safer car for everyone.” In a way, it’s shaky ground we’re standing on. One, because we’re standing on a foundation of dated perceptions of the future, and …
On February 22, 2017, news of the discovery of seven new exoplanets was announced by NASA. This may be a new word for you non-NASA geeks out there. Let’s examine the difference between planets and exoplanets. A planet is sometimes also called a major planet. It’s any of the eight large heavenly bodies revolving about the sun and shining by reflected light. In the order …
Part of the drama of hurricane season revolves around the predicting and changing of the severity—or category—of the storm. What category will the hurricane be when it hits land? What kind of damage might it inflict? What is a hurricane category? There are a few classification scales that meteorological agencies use to determine the intensity of hurricanes. The Saffir-Simpson scale is used to measure the strength of …
The winter solstice lasts for just one moment. It occurs exactly when Earth’s axial tilt is farthest away from the sun. This usually happens around December 21 or 22 in the Northern Hemisphere or June 20 or 21 in the Southern Hemisphere. If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, during the solstice the sun will be at its southernmost point in the sky. The higher in …
The iPhone may have only shown up during the aughts, but autocorrect is almost as old as personal computers. Even some of the earliest word processors had a spellcheck feature that suggested alternative words if a word you typed did not appear in its internal dictionary. Certainly, today, autocorrect has come a long way since the Cupertino effect. What’s the Cupertino effect? Well, in its …
In 2013, the Sunday Times outed J.K. Rowling as the author of the detective novel The Cuckoo’s Calling, published under her nom de plume Robert Galbraith. While devotees of Rowling quickly procured and binge-read her latest work, linguists and language lovers worldwide celebrated the computational analysis of the two scholars who helped reveal the true author of the book in question. How did experts figure …
Like Pluto’s three other moons: Charon, Nix, and Hydra, it’s newest found satellites are named for figures from Greek myth: Styx and Kerberos. But how did the IAU reach this naming conclusion? How did Pluto’s moons get their names? According to their press release, “These names were backed by voters in a recently held popular contest, aimed at allowing the public to suggest names for the …
In 2012, Facebook’s user agreement set off some red flags. When users logged into their Facebook accounts, they agreed that: “You will not use our copyrights or trademarks (including Facebook, the Facebook and F Logos, FB, Face, Poke, Book and Wall), or any confusingly similar marks, except as expressly permitted by our Brand Usage Guidelines or with our prior written permission.” What does that legalese …
Wherever we go on the internet, we encounter CAPTCHAs, those twisted words that block or enable entries on websites. Need to post an ad on Craigslist or log into your email from a new device? You may meet a CAPTCHA. Want to comment on an article or blog post? CAPTCHA. So, why do we have them? How do CAPTCHAs work? CAPTCHAs were invented to block …
For years, scientists have been on the hunt for a mysterious “Planet Nine” that may exist in our solar system with a massive orbit of thousands—or even millions—of years. In 2011, a provocative hypothesis posed by a duo of planetary astronomers from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette named its version of this mysterious planet Tyche. They proposed a planet estimated to be four times the size of …
Have you heard the story about a giant green blob discovered in a remote section of the universe? An intergalactic blob in and of itself isn’t an appropriate topic for a dictionary website, even if the blob has been shown to move and change color. The reason you are reading about this on Dictionary.com is the mouthful of a name: Hanny’s Voorwerp. The second word is pronounced “FOR-verp.” What …