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Category: Language and Culture

Low-Hanging Buzzwords: The Etymology of 3 Corporate Favorites

Is your company pushing the envelope to create disruptive innovations outside the box? Have you considered how scalable your department’s synergy really is? Can your sales reps proactively leverage their resources to snatch up the lowest-hanging fruit? And is that...

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What Can Artificial Languages Tell Us About the Way Our Brains Learn and Process Language?

As intriguingly varied as world languages are, linguists agree that they share certain structural factors that broach continents and cultures. For decades, the roots of this phenomenon have been debated and explored; a study out of the University of Rochester...

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The Origins of 10 Interjections

Many of us remember the delightful Schoolhouse Rock video in which a sick little boy, a coy lady, and a jeering crowd yell out a plethora of interjections set to a catchy tune. Interjections are some of the most fun...

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40 Business Acronyms and Business Abbreviations You Should Know

These days, we don’t always have the time to use full words or speak in complete sentences. The advent of text-speak and internet lingo has conditioned many of us to seek out the most efficient routes of communication. While far...

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Useful Words We’ve Forgotten from Math Class

Mathematics has a language all its own – a rich tapestry of systems interconnected with ironclad logic. Linguistics, philosophy, and mathematics have shared insights for centuries – Sir Isaac Newton, for example, composed a hefty treatise in 1687 entitled Mathematical...

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Haute Culture Books: Bringing Untranslated Classics to English Readers

For as many texts that have been translated into English, scores more have not enjoyed the wider readership that the English language provides. Haute Culture aims to change that with a line of international books that have never before been...

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Schwa Fire Launches Kickstarter Campaign

Calling all language-lovers! If you’re looking for robust, personal, and in-depth language stories instead of snippets and sound bites, you may be interested in Schwa Fire – a digital publication dedicated to just that. A Kickstarter campaign is currently under...

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Ћ “Evolution in Communication?” There’s an App for That

Paul Mathis is proposing an “evolution in communication.” How you ask? The Australian restaurateur has created a proposed addition to the alphabet: Ћ. The letter is designed to be a stand-in for the word “the.” According to Mathis’ website, the...

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University of Illinois Accepting Applications for Fall 2014 MA in Translation and Interpreting

Earlier this year, we shared information with our readers about the new online MA in Translation and Interpreting program offered by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Representatives from the MA program recently told us that the launch was...

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Succeeding Globally Through International Education and Engagement: U.S. Department of Education Unveils its 2012-16 International Strategy

The ever-blurring borders of nations and the subsequent cultural, linguistic, educational, business, and economic shifts that take place are not going unnoticed by the U.S. Department of Education. In November of this year, the Department released its first-ever document detailing...

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5 Things You Should Know About the Foreign Language Proficiency Bonus (FLPB)

1. It’s no longer called Foreign Language Proficiency Pay (FLPP). Now it’s called Foreign Language Proficiency Bonus (FLPB) or “Flip Bee.” 2. FLPB is designed to compensate soldiers that speak a foreign language for maintaining their linguistic skills. Provided a...

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How is English Used as a Lingua Franca Today?

The term lingua franca was first coined at the beginning of the 17th century by the Italians. At that time, it represented a conglomeration of mostly Italian, with a smattering of French, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, and Arabic, and was...

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