Language: Why We Hear More Than Words
It’s a classic complaint in relationships, especially romantic ones: “She said she was okay with me forgetting her birthday! Then why is she throwing dishes in the kitchen? Are the two things …
Language
Descriptions Aren’t Prescriptions
When we look at a representation of reality, we can choose to either see it as descriptive, meaning it tells us what the world is currently like, or as prescriptive, meaning it tells us how the world …
Words Like Loaded Pistols: Wartime Rhetoric
Rhetoric, or the art of persuasion, is an ancient topic that’s no less relevant today. We are in a golden age of information sharing, which means you are swimming in a pool of rhetoric every …
Steven Pinker on Why Your Professional Writing Sucks (And What to Do)
When we know a lot about a topic, it can be difficult to write about it in a way that makes sense to the layperson. In order to write better about your professional specialty, you need to avoid using …
Yuval Noah Harari on Why Humans Dominate the Earth: Myth-Making
Yuval Noah Harari‘s Sapiens is one of those uniquely breathtaking books that comes along very rarely. It’s broad, yet scientific. It’s written for a popular audience but never feels …
How Analogies Reveal Connections, Spark Innovation, and Sell Our Greatest Ideas
Analogies are a means of drawing a parallel between two different things which we often use to convey complex ideas and to communicate effectively. We often use analogies to aid our reasoning. In this …
Wired for Culture
What makes us human? In part, argues evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel in Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind, language is one of the keys to our evolutionary success, especially in …
The Psychology of We
Two categories of people that can be hard to have a conversation with are good friends and people who have worked together for a long time. Sometimes it’s like they are speaking their own …
What’s Accomplished in Conversation?
What is a conversation? A simple question that’s difficult to answer. We think we know until we try to explain it to someone else. In The Domestication of Language, Daniel Cloud explores the …
David Foster Wallace: Five Common Word Usage Mistakes
I’m a big David Foster Wallace fan. His 2005 commencement speech will go down as one of the best ever. If you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently …
John Holland: The Building Blocks of Innovation
“Most innovation comes from combining well-known, well-established, building blocks in new ways.” *** John Holland, a professor of two vastly different fields—psychology and engineering—at …
Metaphors
For most people a metaphor is a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. “For this reason,” write Mark Johnson and George Lakoff in their book Metaphors We Live By, “most people think …
Wittgenstein: Reality is Shaped by the Words we Use
“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.” — Wittgenstein Philosopher Bertrand Russell described Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein as …
The Difference Between Persuade, Convince, and Coerce
The difference is worth understanding. In a recent slate article, K.C. Cole writes: Persuasion requires understanding. Coercion requires only power. We usually equate coercion with obvious force, but …
The Difference Between Persuading and Convincing
Too often we try to convince people when we really should persuade them. Seth Godin writes: Marketers don’t convince. Engineers convince. Marketers persuade. Persuasion appeals to the emotions …
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Why Words, Names, and Labels matter
Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why words, names, and labels matter. The lesson? Choose your words carefully. The universe is hard enough. The last thing the universe needs is a complex lexicon laid down …