Folium: Why Does a Word Sometimes Lose All Meaning via MentalFloss

… Connect MentalFloss: Why Does a Word Sometimes Lose All Meaning? … There is a phenomenon that appears when a word occurs multiple times, that word begins to lose it’s meaning, or as Zachary Petit puts in his article “disintegrates” before your eyes. This phenomenon is called Semantic Satiation, or semantic saturation which is more formally […]

Folium: Why I Taught Myself 20 Languages… via TED-Ed

… Connect TED-Ed: Why I Taught Myself 20 Languages… … If you don’t know what a hyperpolyglot is… that’s ok, because neither did I. But a hyperpolyglot is someone who is gifted at massively accumulating languages. They possess a particular neurology that’s well-suited for learning languages very quickly and putting them to good use. While […]

Folium: How Latino Players Are Helping Major League Baseball Learn Spanish via NPR

… Connect NPR: How Latino Players Are Helping Major League Baseball Learn Spanish … Baseball has been known as an American pastime. However, over the years baseball has gained more recognition and has spread to countries all over the world. This has ultimately led to foreign players coming to America to play baseball in the […]

Folium: How Different Cultures Around the World Deal With Emotion and Conflict via BigThink

… Connect BigThink: How Different Cultures Around the World Deal With Emotion and Conflict … Many different people make up this world with varying colors, genders, sizes, sexualities and races just to name a few. Something that distinguishes a group of humans more than anything else is the way their culture affects them. In this article […]

Folium: How Cross-Cultural Dialogue Builds Critical Thinking and Empathy via KQED

… Connect KQED: How Cross-Cultural Dialogue Builds Critical Thinking and Empathy … Cross-cultural implies comparison of two or more cultural groups including international, interfaith, interethnic, or interracial. Cross-cultural dialogue is the study of how members of different cultural groups perceive and/or engage in dialogue. Something that concerns author Katrina Schwartz is that students and teachers need […]

Folium: English Is Not Normal via Aeon

… Connect Aeon: English Is Not Normal … I am sure you have noticed, but English is a pretty strange language, and I know many who agree to that statement. John McWhorter is is a professor of linguistics and American studies at Columbia University. He writes in his article titles “English is Not Normal” about […]

Folium: Do All Languages Derive from a Single Common Ancestor via Slate

… Connect Slate: Do All Languages Derive from a Single Common Ancestor … Have you ever wondered what the first language on the earth was? We may never know because of the rate at which languages change and mutate on a constant basis. Gretchen McCulloch writes to educate us on the subject of Verner’s law […]

Folium: Dissonant Tones Sound Fine to People Not Raised in Western Music via ArsTechnica

… Connect ArsTechnica: Dissonant Tones Sound Fine to People Not Raised in Western Music … Bobby McFerrin is an American jazz vocalist and conductor. A ten-time Grammy Award winner, he is known for his unique vocal techniques. In this article Cathleen tells us about his theory and how he tested it. Bobby went around to […]

Folium: An Emerging Entry In America’s Multiracial Vocabulary: ‘Blaxican’ via NPR / Code Switch

… Connect NPR/CodeSwitch: An Emerging Entry In America’s Multiracial Vocabulary: ‘Blaxican’ … Between colonial history, immigration cycles, and cultural flow in the United States, there are endless new definitions of what “American” really is. Melissa Adams is a living example of what that changing definition of “American” really is. She was born black and Mexican. […]

Folium: When a Dad Takes His Daughter on a Trip via UpWorthy

  … Connect When a Dad Takes His Daughter on a Trip via UpWorthy … Not everyone would agree that bringing your two year old child on a spontaneous trip to the unknown is logical, but Stefen Chow would challenge that notion. He couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take a trip when he found […]