What do the words “not” and “wight” have in common?
If you have been watching Game of Thrones, then you would have heard the word “wight”. In literature this word is used to refer to some kind of supernatural entity, whether it is a ghost or even a god. Sometimes it can also be used to refer to some kind of monster. In previous centuries […]
What’s the weirdest way of delivering information that still sounds like language and what can we learn from it?
We live and breathe language. We take it so for granted that we often don’t realise how amazing it is. Even someone who spends most of their time with language, like me, can still be surprised by things that language does. When I was growing up, language seemed very straight forward, almost boring. If I […]
What “yes” and “no” can tell us about how people think
Sometimes the simplest words can actually turn out to not be simple at all. We only see them as simple because we use them every day, but we don’t realise all the complexity that is involved. There is something humans do quite effortlessly, which is work with commonly held ideas without even realising they are […]
