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High School English: A Waste of Time?
High School English:
A Waste of Time?
OPINION
May 15, 2011 3:14 PM CDT

High School English: A Waste of Time?

No one wants to teach grammar because it's not fun: Kim Brooks

(Newser) - Sometimes, while Kim Brooks is grading essays by her college composition students, she cries. "Not real tears, exactly—more a spontaneous, guttural sob, often loud and unpleasant enough to startle my husband or children," she writes in Salon . Why? Because many of these students "simply ... cannot write....

All Languages Tracked to Single African Tongue

 All Languages 
 Tracked to Single 
 African Tongue 
in case you missed it
Apr 17, 2011 8:11 AM CDT

All Languages Tracked to Single African Tongue

Study links language differences to migration route of early humans

(Newser) - The thousands of languages spoken in the world today can be traced back to a "mother tongue of mother tongues" that arose in Africa around 50,000 years ago, a new study suggests. The lead researcher, evolutionary psychologist Quentin Atkinson, borrowed a few ideas from genetic researchers, the Wall ...

Last 2 Speakers of Dying Language Not Talking
 Last 2 Speakers of 
 Dying Language Not Talking 
in case you missed it
Apr 16, 2011 1:05 PM CDT

Last 2 Speakers of Dying Language Not Talking

Mexico's Ayapaneco language on last legs

(Newser) - The centuries-old Mexican Ayapaneco language isn't quite dead yet—but there may never be another conversation in it. There are only two people left alive who speak it fluently, and they don't want to have anything to do with each other, reports the Guardian . Apart from the language,...

Sorry Kids, No 'Booty' in New Bible

US bishops replace chuckle-inducing word with 'spoils'

(Newser) - No longer will young Catholics snicker in Sunday school every time the word "booty" comes up in a Bible verse: In the newest translation of the New American Bible, Catholic bishops have ordered the word "booty" replaced with the word "spoils." It's just one of many...

Knowing 2nd Language May Ward Off Alzheimer's

Bilinguals cope with dementia better: study

(Newser) - People who want protection against Alzheimer's might want to pick up a second language, LiveScience reports. York University researchers found that bilingual people who suffered from Alzheimer's had cognitive impairment comparable to sufferers who were 4 to 5 years younger—essentially, being bilingual seems to have bought them additional years...

Our Kids Don't Need to Learn Chinese
Our Kids Don't Need
to Learn Chinese
NICK KRISTOF
Dec 30, 2010 11:09 AM CST

Our Kids Don't Need to Learn Chinese

Spanish, however, would benefit them

(Newser) - Nick Kristof and his family speak Chinese, and “let’s be frank,” he writes in the New York Times , “if your child hasn’t started Mandarin classes by third grade, he or she will never amount to anything.” Oh, actually … “just kidding,” continues...

Linguists Study Dying Languages—With Ultrasound

Technology helps them watch the moving tongue

(Newser) - It's not a tool generally associated with linguists, but ultrasound scans are proving to be invaluable to them, reports Scientific American . The same device that gives doctors a glimpse of a fetus is also pretty good at capturing images of the moving tongue. For linguists documenting rare languages in Africa,...

'Whatever' Most Annoying Word in English Language
Guess the Most
Annoying Word. Ever.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Dec 19, 2010 5:42 PM CST

Guess the Most Annoying Word. Ever.

'Whatever' is worst; 'like' also highly irritating

(Newser) - “Whatever” is, like, the most annoying word in the English language, a poll finds—for the second year in a row, notes Reuters. The Marist survey of more than 1,000 Americans found that almost 39% think “whatever” is the most annoying English word or phrase; runners up...

Politifact Names 'Lie of the Year'
Politifact Names
'Lie of the Year'
Dec 18, 2010 8:05 AM CST

Politifact Names 'Lie of the Year'

Health care reform no 'government takeover'

(Newser) - This year’s biggest political lie is the phrase “a government takeover of health care,” holds the nonpartisan fact-checking group Politifact . The term "government takeover" was suggested by a GOP strategist, who called on Republican leaders to use it to refer to health care reform—and use...

Brain Learns New Words in 15 Minutes

... if it hears them over and over and over

(Newser) - It takes the brain just 15 minutes to learn a new word, new research suggests. The trick is hearing it, oh, say 160 times in 15 minutes, the Telegraph reports. If that happens, the brain creates a neural network that is "virtually indistinguishable" from those surrounding familiar words, Cambridge...

3 Gamer Phrases We All Should Use

'It's on like Donkey Kong' has become liability

(Newser) - Nintendo’s trying to trademark “It’s on like Donkey Kong”—so we need a new video-game based catchphrase. Contenders from Unplggd :
  • I Got Mario Karted: Someone’s beaten you at the last minute, which often happens in Mario Kart. Example: “I almost got with this girl/guy,
...

10 Phrases That Need to Die
 10 Phrases That Need to Die 
Oct 31, 2010 8:09 AM CDT

10 Phrases That Need to Die

I am so above all the drama. Literally.

(Newser) - If you haven't said at least one of these, oh, at least 128 times in casual conversation, you should check that you still have a pulse. Because most of us can't avoid uttering them time and time again, and it just needs to stop, writes Alida Nugent on her Frenemy...

Scientists Discover New Language

But India's Koro is in danger of becoming obsolete

(Newser) - Two linguists have discovered a language new to science, spoken by only about 1,000 people in the foothills of the Himalayas, the LA Times reports. Koro, as it has been named, was found among residents in a remote area of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Instead of being...

Brawl Over Starbucks Lingo Gets Customer Booted

'All I did was ask for a bagel,' professor insists

(Newser) - It was only a matter of time before Starbucks' bizarre lingo (tall? whatever happened to small?) drove someone batty. Fittingly, it was a college English professor who finally had enough, and subsequently got removed from the store by three police officers. "I just wanted a multigrain bagel," Lynne...

Ancient Mystery 'Language' Unearthed in Scotland

What are they trying to tell us?

(Newser) - Carvings discovered on more than 200 stones in Scotland have stumped linguists striving to decipher the ancient code. Some linguists believe the symbols carved by an ancient people known as the Picts are a lost language, and others say the carvings could be drawings with a message rather than writing....

Pets Helped Humans Evolve
 Pets Helped 
 Humans Evolve 
Aug 3, 2010 12:56 PM CDT

Pets Helped Humans Evolve

Interspecies connection is 'very deep and very old'

(Newser) - The connection between humans and domesticated animals goes back millions of years and may have helped humans develop tools and even language, researchers say. The interspecies connection—nearly unique to humans and their pets and livestock—"connects the other big evolutionary leaps, including stone tools, language and domestication,"...

Cheeky British Pol: French Language Is Useless

Young people should be learning Chinese

(Newser) - Britain's former minister for Europe Chris Bryant—apparently feeling free to annoy the French now that his Labour party is out of power—described the French language as "useless" in a debate on language education yesterday. Young people, Bryant said, should be steered away from "useless modern foreign...

New York Times Banishes the Word 'Tweet'

Standards editor calls it 'jargon'

(Newser) - The cool kids may call their Twitter posts “tweets,” but no one ever accused the New York Times of being a cool kid. Phil Corbett, the Times’ new standards editor, has sent out a proclamation banning the use of the word “outside of ornithological contexts,” reports...

Thousands of Avatar Fans Learning Na'vi
 Thousands of Avatar 
 Fans Learning Na'vi 
'by Eywa!'
Mar 25, 2010 11:45 AM CDT

Thousands of Avatar Fans Learning Na'vi

Educational website even has study guides

(Newser) - If you’ve already mastered Klingon, you might want to turn your language learning talents onto Na’vi next. Yes, obsessive Avatar fans are learning the fictional language, most notably at the appropriately named learnnavi.org , where 4,300 people have already contributed to the discussion forums. One commenter, during...

Through Sheer Power, Google Translate Gets It Right

Similar programs use 1B words, while Google plugs in 100B+

(Newser) - Score one for Google’s “don’t be evil” side as Web surfers reap the benefits of its excellent translation program—thanks to the sheer force of Google's web dominance. Machine translation is a particularly tricky computer problem that programmers now agree is most easily solved by feeding massive...

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