http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/?utm_source=rss A Monthly Column for Word Lovers Copyright 2013, Thinkmap Inc. All Rights Reserved. en Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/images/common/logo_on_white.gif http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/?utm_source=rss Language Lounge http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-meronymy?utm_source=rss Figures of speech in which a part stands for the whole contribute to making linguistic expression so rich, flexible, complex, and interesting. For human speakers, it's a lifelong learning opportunity and a palette from which to paint word pictures and create new expressions. For computers trying to understand language, it can be an intractable problem. Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-meronymy Language Lounge http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/forward-march?utm_source=rss The phrase going forward is impossible to avoid: it is beloved by politicians, journalists, and marketers. Going forward does, however, provide an opportunity to look at the many ways that English offers to unite "now" with what may lie ahead, and the ways in which fashions in usage, among other factors, influence how speakers and writers signal their expectations or wishes. Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/forward-march Language Lounge http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/whats-happening?utm_source=rss Few of us get through a week without asking some version of the question, "What's happening?" There's always a lot going on and there are always a lot of people who want to know about it. Authorities want to know about it too, if what's going on threatens the safety or security of a population that is under their protection. A 21st-century way that authorities try to find out what's going on is called event detection. Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/whats-happening Language Lounge http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/up-in-arms?utm_source=rss The Second Amendment of the US Constitution is now specifically interpreted to mean that individuals have a right to possess a firearm for traditionally legal purposes. The Supreme Court case on which this interpretation of the amendment rests came down to arguments over language and definitions. Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/up-in-arms Language Lounge http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/lexical-arm-twisting?utm_source=rss Arm-twisting is a means of inducing cooperation through pressure. Words do it too — in the case of words, it is peer pressure that induces cooperation, and the pressure on a word is to express a meaning that the word's companions make compulsory. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/lexical-arm-twisting Language Lounge http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/make-sense-word-games-with-a-purpose?utm_source=rss There's a new game in town. Actually, there are a number of new games, all of them about words. They give you an opportunity to test your language skills and aptitude, as well as to advance the cause of science. The games are GWAPs, that is, games with a purpose, and they help researchers develop valuable training data for getting computers to process language the way humans do, only better and faster. Mon, 03 Dec 2012 00:00:00 EST http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/make-sense-word-games-with-a-purpose Language Lounge http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/just-following-directions?utm_source=rss Technology today allows us to outsource, perhaps to "upsource," a number of tasks to the cloud — tasks that used to require some degree of focused effort, record-keeping, or mindfulness from us. Anyone who uses a GPS navigational device, whether on a smartphone or in a vehicle, can testify to its revolutionary effect on wayfinding: the means by which we orient ourselves and navigate from place to place. Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/just-following-directions Language Lounge http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/chimichangas-at-the-ok-corral?utm_source=rss Two US states celebrate their centenaries in 2012: Arizona and New Mexico. We join them this month with a look at their unique contributions to English, and the characteristic ways in which language contact gives rise to borrowing, hybridization, and neologisms. Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/chimichangas-at-the-ok-corral Language Lounge http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/talk-about-silence?utm_source=rss An overlooked virtue of silence is its role as the desirable condition of creatures when there is not anything in particular that they need to say or do, and its great merit in being a state less likely to lead to trouble than its opposite: talk. Mon, 03 Sep 2012 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/talk-about-silence Language Lounge http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/theres-an-algorithm-for-that?utm_source=rss Teach a computer to recognize some rules about language, develop algorithms for computers to apply to big buckets of text, and before you know it, computers may be able to tell you things about language or extracted from language that you didn't know before, or that the writer didn't suspect he or she was revealing. Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 EDT http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/theres-an-algorithm-for-that