Not even if you were the last person on earth

There were several stories over the weekend that piqued my interest, some of which turned out to be not as interesting as hoped, but some were gems. This one, for example, reports an exciting discovery about the origin of language. Along the same vein, a BBC article described how linguists using methods similar to Gregor Mendel’s pea plant experiments were able to theorize that culture, not cognitive constraints, is responsible for language development. The latter article especially is of use to me as I continue to work on the language and thought issue initially brought up in my Second Languages, le premier part post of January 2010. (Part Deux, the sequel, coming to a computer near you, Summer 2011!)

There was, however, something else that was much more important: Continue reading

Oh snap!

I’ve always been a bit of a late bloomer – even the slang term used in the title of this post is probably already out of date. But things are cyclical. Just look at how leg warmers have made a comeback!

nr(*%^*(&hg#gae!ri

Oh excuse me, I just had a minor spasm at that memory. I’ll shake it off…

A few weeks ago in class, we were discussing the story “A&P” by John Updike. The climax of the story involves the teenaged main character, Sammy, making a grand gesture to defend the honor of three girls in bikinis. The problems was, they had already left before they could witness Sammy’s largess and presumably shower gratitude and adoration over him. Instead, he is left in an empty parking lot.

At this point, a student said, “Sammy just got deaded!” My reaction? Continue reading