Emily Lofton's English Blog 2018

Chances are, if you've been in any kind of approximate vicinity to children (or animals, or...) then you've probably heard some form of Motherese, even if you didn't realize it at the time. First of all, what exactly is 'Motherese'? Simply put, it is that slow, often high-pitched voice caregivers (usually mothers and other older women, in my experience,) use to communicate with younger children. If you haven't seen it in real life, chances are decent that you've seen it in some form of popular media, used for comedic effect. This is because, simply put, after a certain point, it becomes annoying as hell.  Despite this, there are people who claim that it can greatly improve a child's language acquisition in the long run. But the question is, how true are those claims? The answer, according to this article , is... kinda? Maybe...?  Yeah, really, apparently the results of studies done on this very subject turn up inconclusive pretty consistently...

So, in past posts I might have mentioned that my family and I sort of speak our own language. Here are just a few words and phrases pulled from our familial lexicon. Yiss/Yesh: Cutesy ways to say ‘yes’ pretty self-explanatory; often used in conjunction with other baby-babble-ish/cutesy words. Toe beans/ murder feets: Usually used when referring to our cat’s (sweet, dainty, and horrifically grody) feet. Murder Feet (s) refers to the foot as a whole, while toe beans refers specifically to her paw pads. Doggo/Pupper/Shoob/Sheeb/Corgo: From the meme-lish; all referring to dogs. ‘Doggo’ and ’pupper’ refer to the dog’s age group, while ‘Shoob’,’Sheeb’, and ‘Corgo’ all refer to particular breeds (Samoyed, Shiba Inu, and Corgi, respectively.) Bork: Dog noise. Can either refer to the deep noise produced by a larger dog or be used in a more general sense as a synonym for barking done by any kind of dog. Chi-Chi: Cheetah, especially a baby, adolescent, o...

So, I've been on a bit of a kick. Since my last article, I'd been thinking I would do at least one more entry about the Vikings. Originally I had been planning on doing an entry about old Norse slander laws, or the Viking's concepts of witchcraft and Ergi. However,it would take a while to read, process and paraphrase all that info-provided I could find a credible source, and I'm not trying to write a history paper. Anyway, as I was settling myself in for a slog through other people's history papers, I found something a bit more interesting. After scrolling past a few links clearly aimed more toward tattoo artists than language students, a link caught my eye. Clicking it took me to a familiar blog site, one I've come across many times in my searches for random tidbits of knowledge. Ancient Origins is a blog as fascinating as it is diverse (which is very.)Even after running across it so many times, I still don't know exactly what its focus is. This time...

Say what you want about the ancient Norse- as bad a rap as the media has given them, they have certainly made their marks on western culture, for better or worse. For all the media has done to portray the ancient Norse as uncivilized raiders and looters, they actually had an incredibly complex societal structure and language. Not only were they literate, they were actually quite heavily reliant on the power of the spoken (and later written) word. In fact, much of what we know about the Norse's beliefs come from epic poems, passed down hundreds of years by word of mouth before being committed to writing. Because of this and other beliefs (which I could go on about,) the Norse held regarding the power of words, maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise that Norse warriors engaged in battles of poetic wit just as often as they engaged in contests of physical prowess. Yes. Once more for the people in the back: The vikings were, if not the first, then among the first to engage ...

Quick, what's the first thing that comes to mind when I say "Krypton?" Chances are, your mind immediately leapt to the defunct home-planet/mortal weakness and Achilles heel of one Kal-el, more popularly known as Superman. If I asked you a hundred years ago, your answer would be very different. In 1898, the element Krypton made it's debut, courtesy of one Sir William Ramsay and his colleague Morris Travers. The name was originally taken from the Greek "kryptos" meaning "hidden." But jump ahead to around 1935, when Superman as we know him today was still in his infancy, and you'd find the word being used more frequently (outside scientific circles, at least,) to refer to Kal's home world, and the fictional, radioactive fallout from its destruction that has entered popular culture as Clark Kent's Kryptonite. Yet again,you may find yourself asking "what the dickens has this got to do with anything?" A lot,  actu...

What is a metaphor? According to  Merriam-Webster.com , a metaphor is " a figure of speech  in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or  analogy   between them... " often compared to -gasp- similes. Or, to put it in an easier to understand way (courtesy of this really cool article I found on the  Grammarly Blog ,)  "...a figure of speech that describes an object or action in a way that isn’t literally true, but helps explain an idea or make a comparison."  Personally, I think writing is both incredibly boring and physically hard to both read and retain without good, solid metaphors to hold the reader's interest throughout. I love using them in my writing and use them fairly frequently in everyday conversation.This might be why I have so much difficulty with formal writing. While it has its place, I find technical writing almost physically painful...