A few days ago, I tweeted a link to an article in TES: What Miss really means < It’s always worthwhile re-examining ingrained inequalities http://t.co/GKhjc4VgUP #edchat #ukedchat #feminism — Dominik Lukes (@techczech) May 17, 2014 Today, I got the following response back: @techczech ‘really means’ talks about origins. It doesn’t mean that to me now. […]
The role of metaphor in science debate (Background) Recently, the LSE podcast an interesting panel on the subject of “Metaphors and Science”. It featured three speakers talking about the interface between metaphor and various ‘scientific’ disciplines (economics, physics and surgery). Unlike many such occasions, all speakers were actually very knowledgeable and thoughtful on the subject. […]
While people keep banging on about Chomsky as being the be all and end all of linguistics (I’m looking at you philosophers of language), there have been many linguists who have had a much more substantial impact on how we actually think about language in a way that matters. In my post on why Chomsky is […]
Metonymy in the wild Things were not going well for Mitt Romney in early autumn of last year. And then he responded to a query about gender equality with this sentence: “I had the chance to pull together a cabinet, and all the applicants seemed to be men… I went to a number of women’s […]
“when history is at its most obliging, the history-writer needs be at his most wary.” (China by John Keay) I came across this nugget of wisdom when I was re-reading the Introduction to John Keay’s history of China. And it struck me that in some way this quote could be a part of the motto […]
I just found out that both abstracts I submitted to the Cognitive Futures of the Humanities Conference were accepted. I was really only expecting one to get through but I’m looking forward to talking about the ideas in both. The first first talk has foundations in a paper I wrote almost 5 years ago now about […]
“We have to use cliches,” said professor Abhijit Banerjee at the start of his LSE lecture on Poor Economics. “The world is just too complicated.” He continued. “Which is why it is all the more important, we choose the right cliches.” [I’m paraphrasing here.] This is an insight at the very heart of linguistics. Every […]
I never meant to listen to this LSE debate on modern atheism because I’m bored of all the endless moralistic twaddle on both sides but it came on on my MP3 player and before I knew it, I was interested enough not to skip it. Not that it provided any Earth-shattering new insights but on […]
Jim Shimabukuro uses Rupert Murdoch’s quote “We have a 21st century economy with a 19th century education system” to pose a question of what should 21st Century Education look like (http://etcjournal.com/2008/11/03/174/) “what are the key elements for an effective 21st century model for schools and colleges?”. However, what he is essentially asking us to do is perform […]
I thought the moral compass metaphor has mostly left current political discourse but it just cropped up – this time pointing from left to right – as David Plouffe accused Mitt Romney of not having one. As I keep repeating, George Lakoff once said “Metaphors can kill.” And Moral Compass has certainly done its share […]