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The Sense of Style
Let’s face it: Most academics are terrible communicators. Why do the world’s most cerebral people find it so hard to convey their ideas? And how can we learn to do better? I suggest that the
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Friend Fail: When Your Partner Dislikes Your Pals
The Wall Street Journal: About a year after she started to date her boyfriend, Shanon Leespotted a potential deal breaker: his friends. She saw how much his pals, men and women, drank and cursed, texted
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Gchat Venting Is Only Making You Madder
New York Magazine: There is really only one way I deal with indignation, be it righteous or ridiculous, if I happen to be at a computer when it happens: I take it to Gchat. I
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The Magic Of Words
NPR: The philosopher George Berkeley famously argued (contra John Locke) that we can never have truly abstract ideas — ideas stripped of all particulars and details. When I think of a triangle, I imagine a
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Thirty Million Words Aren’t Enough
Pacific Standard: Thirty million words. That’s the gap between what kids from high- and low-income families hear by the time they’re three, and it’s widely thought to explain socioeconomic disparities in language skills and, later
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Do You See What I See?
The Economist: HUMAN beings are not born with the knowledge that others possess minds with different contents. Children develop such a “theory of mind” gradually, and even adults have it only imperfectly. But a study