Beyond Words

In the days leading up to the massive protest at Moscow’s Bolotnaya (“Swampy”) Square, numerous blogs, tweets, and posts across the city called for a careful, civil, peaceful gathering of tens of thousands of Russians fed up with their government...

Modern English is threaded through with all manner of polite turns of phrase, evasive maneuvers, and superfluous tautologies. We do not ask a question; we ask if we may ask a question. We say “I’m sorry” when someone tells us...

Of the fifteen languages that the State Department has termed “critical needs” languages for national security or commerce, the popularity of Arabic among American students has shown the most marked increase. According to a 2010 report by the Institute of...

Many young Americans experience their first taste of foreign cultures and distant lands while in college, taking a semester or year abroad to hone their foreign-language skills, broaden their cultural understanding, and, more often than not, party with the locals....

In October 2009, we ran an article about the growing field of animal cognition and highlighted a research project on vervet monkeys. It appears that vervet monkeys have the ability to differentiate their calls to signify the presence of various...

I have to admit that I’m something of a technology skeptic—neither whiz nor victim and neither extolling the internet’s virtues nor pining for the days of a tech-free world. But, having started using Google Chrome (just a few years behind...

Do you know your classical architecture? Can you glean "DNA" from the clue "Letters from your parents?" Does your knowledge flow seamlessly from ancient Greek philosophers to today's sitcom stars? If so, you may well be fluent in "crosswordese," a...