Otherwords

There was a time when written words were all scrunched together without any spaces or symbols to help the reader make sense of it. How did we get from that to this‽

Sometimes misunderstandings and made-up origins get popular enough to stick around... we call these "folk etymologies"!

TikTok users are altering their speech to evade algorithmic filters--but will this harm language in the long run?

Since ancient times, humans have believed in the special power of words to change the world around them... and they might be right!

We' gonna have to ask you to go ahead and watch this video.

It's one of the most contentious debates in linguistics, and at the heart of what it means to be human!

Researchers and casual users alike have documented that generative AI tools often struggle with negation: the language we use to express absences, untruths, and opposites. Gen AI models may be able to show you what you do want to see, but they’re NOT as good at NOT giving you what you DON’T want. Read that last sentence back again and you can understand why. So, how do we understand it ourselves?

Body parts would probably have been one of the first things that ancient peoples gave names to, so not only do we find hundreds of cognates and permutations, but also widespread use in idioms, slang and other figures of speech. Since our bodies have been with us literally from the beginning, we can learn a lot about language by investigating their etymologies.