Tag: Language

Culture Ireland

Laughing at what we are

In what other country would there be web sites offering the equivalent of “funny Irish place-names”?—which in fact are not Irish at all but corruptions. And the great majority of these are not even corruptions in the usual linguistic sense—i.e. changes made over time by the usage of people (in […]

Socialism

Language is never neutral

Arrival, a recent and popular sci-fi film based on the Ted Chiang novella Story of Your Life, and China Miéville’s perennially popular Embassytown both build on a long tradition of fiction challenging and examining the power of language. These are especially interesting because of their focus on the interaction of […]