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Guest Post: Reflections on the Words Love and Hate
In a first for this blog, we have a guest post, written by Elena Lathrop. Elena is a recent UCLA graduate with a B.A. in Sociology and a Linguistics minor, and a freelance writer. (In addition to...
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Illegal Immigrants
With the recently re-ignited debate over the term illegal immigrant, I have heard all the arguments against using the term, including: It is politically divisive or inflammatory. It presumes guilt...
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All of Which
Picture from PeruDelights.com Last week was the last football game of the season for Doug’s high school. As such, it was “senior night,” when the seniors on the football team received a pre-game...
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Conditional Imperfection
“Rocco was doing it again today,” Adam told Doug at supper one night. His classmate Rocco has a habit of making contrarian claims, seemingly just for the purpose of arguing about them. “He was saying...
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How to Talk to Drug-Free Kids
I was listening to Terry Gross interview Gabriel Sherman, the author of a book on the history of Fox News founder Roger Ailes. Sherman was talking about TVN, a precursor to Fox News that ran for a time...
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Don’t Follow to Unfollow
“Don’t follow to unfollow,” said the last line in the Instagram profile. What did that mean? It seemed to be saying, “To unfollow me, simply don’t follow me!” But that interpretation didn’t make sense!...
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Modal Miscommunication
I got a Facebook message from someone who had friended me based on my linguistical online presence. From his profile, he seems to be Middle Eastern. He was asking about graduate linguistic programs in...
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Wrapped Carrots
The wife and I recently had occasion to spend a weekend at a resort in Cancun on someone else’s expense account, which was nice. I learned some Spanish vocabulary, including gorra “baseball cap”,...
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/(h)ej(ː)o/
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton hit it big last year. I gradually became aware of it during the winter and spring, and eventually bought the original cast recording for my wife. The songs soon...
View ArticleForcibly Arriving
Last month, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened in Montgomery, Alabama. That rather vague name may not ring a bell for you, but if you’ve been hearing news stories about a “lynching...
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