Gravitahn
Excerpted from his lecture at the Royal Institution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV5J6BfToSw
Steven Pinker is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He conducts research on language and cognition and has authored ten books, including:
The Language Instinct
How the Mind Works
The Blank Slate
The Stuff of Thought
The Better Angels of Our Nature
and most recently, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.
http://stevenpinker.com
Source
The thing i found with english is that it becomes second nature after awhile. You know 'good' english and then bad english. I'm not a big reader at all but i did well in english at school we read growing up and i was also read to. I think this has helped me as i haven't gone backwards in learning at all even though i don't read books at all. All this is basic to me, I can tell straight away what doesn't seem right and I can change it. The other thing I notice is people over use the same word in a paragraph. Thats pretty annoying ????
Apparently no one’s ever heard of hyperbole
Hilarious example of awful hair usage !
"Welcome to the Henry Blake Cliche Festival." — Hawkeye Pierce of M*A*S*H fame describing Col. Blake's over-reliance on cliches.
Why does he constantly use the personifying term she!? Do only females listen to this? WOW! If, other than that, this guy has no humour, no decorum and no stature! Why is he applauded? JUST A SIMPLE OBSERVATION!!
What the fuck is this moron on about! Is he a comedian (Not a funny one!) FUCK ME! This is shit!!!
Euphemisms can kill. Literally.
No ! Literally is to be used along well known sayings such as :
Standing up contest winner. -He was literally the last man standing .
A band who accidentally crash into the venue and knock it down – they literally brought the house down.
People walking across a frozen lake – they can literally walk on water.
A hundred meter sprinter who has had a consistent winning streak who on this occasion when crossing the finishing line gets doused with petrol and set on fire – usain bolt is literally on fire.
A group of sailors in a dinghy with one always standing up and having an argument about everything – he’s literally rocking the boat.
She literally blushed is bullshit…. she just blushed… there’s nothing literal about it. Literally. DAMN!
By 1839, when Charles Dickens wrote Nicholas Nickleby, the figurative sense (the sense that the reading public is up in arms about today) was embedded in the language: “his looks were very haggard, and his limbs and body literally worn to the bone…” Meaning inversion in words is not uncommon.
>>> "forces the reader to shut down HER visual brain…" <<< Is that a Freudian slip? Is he talking about his deep desire to be a woman?
A phrase that irks me to no end is "one of the only", as in, "It was one of the only cars to succeed".
None of those examples are as bad as that haircut.
It's amazing how many people can focus only on the word 'she'.
wtf does he mean by SHE?…
since when we, as a human species, use SHE instead of HE… for a generic person?..
and do we use SHE also when the generic person is a piece of shit?.. or only when we talk politely?
This guy is a figurative God!
Misuse of literally makes me figuratively insane!
this speaker was literally hilarious.
This egotistic academic fool has problems with common English.
Literally virtually figuratively effectively actually. ?♀️ ?♂️ ?♀️ ?♂️
Edited for TV
Good to see you revisiting unexplored territory, Steven, and breaking new ground with a fine-tooth comb.
'You are LITERALLY an asshole'' ''How is that possible? I can't be an
asshole, I have arms and legs and a head!''
(excerpt from Key & Peele ''Meegan come back'')
Thank you for the clip. Gravitahn.
John Porter, I can only hope to one day be able to think, speak and write in a style that my second favorite professor would approve.
What you say is as important as how you say it. Your choices in language indicate your choices in thinking.
You don't really need a Harvard Professor of Psychology and linguistics to understand that, even stupid barely articulate people can figure out that lesson.
Hallelujah, Happy Advent, Merry Christmas, Peace be with you; Thank you for all your good works, God bless you…???
How can a brilliant linguist fail to grasp the hylerbolic irony in the way this word is used…embarassing oversight
Damn jew