MetaFilter posts tagged with linguistics and philosophy

Word Nerds

sluglicker — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:07:13 -0800

Silence! It's the opposite of speech. But that doesn't mean it communicates nothing. A show about the English language, And Sometimes Y was broadcast on CBC Radio One through December of 2007. Live internet broadcast for: Radio One (news and features) | Radio 2 (music)

Lakoff 1, Pinker 0

anotherpanacea — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 20:09:30 -0800

George Lakoff responds to Steven Pinker’s review of Whose Freedom?. Highlights include charges of deception and incompetence on both sides.

Dissecting Humor

Falconetti — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 20:54:35 -0800

Nothing is funnier than an academic or scientist explaining humor .

Semantic web : Lost in Translation

zpousman — Sat, 08 Nov 2003 06:59:29 -0800

Clay Shirky smacks syllogism around. Nice criticism of the semantic web and the present (and increasing) hype of the "semantic web revolution". The most damning part of the essay is the part about languages and categories being deeply intertwined with worldview and with culture—if there's no good definition for the word "bachelor" (see), how can there be an encoding of "friend", "lover" (see article for the classic AI example of "John loves Mary") or anything else that isn't zipcode?