Tag Archives: language

On the Naming of Terms in Several Disciplines

Posted on December 11, 2012 by

Recently I watched an entertaining talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson in which he poked fun at the complexity of biological and chemical terms, in contrast to the elegant simplicity of astrophysics terms… Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Language, Science | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Orwell, Chomsky, and the Power of Twisting Language

Posted on October 1, 2012 by

Choosing the right word is very important, but I’ve recently found it to be far more important than I previously thought. Influences: George Orwell, Noam Chomsky. An Experiment Consider the 1974 Loftus and Palmer experiment [1][2][3]. Participants were shown identical short videos … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, Language, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

How Do You Define Obvious?

Posted on October 1, 2012 by

Mathematicians often say things like “It is obvious that…” or “It can be easily shown that…” when the desired result is relatively easy. But to a normal person, what they are saying is not obvious at all. Continue reading →

Posted in Language, Math | Tagged , | 1 Comment

List of Banned Words Constitutes a “Fail”

Posted on February 13, 2011 by

Apparently, the Lake Superior State University takes pride in its 2011 List of Banished Words, which “refudiates” the top 2010 Shakespearean gems like “viral,” “epic,” and “fail.” Here at Cornell, and doubtless many other places, we share a different opinion … Continue reading →

Posted in College, Internet, Language, Lol, News | Tagged | 3 Comments