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Category: Communication

Modern Sailing and Seaspeak

Controlled Natural Languages Seaspeak was created in 1985 to standardize how sailors and others on naval vessels communicated with each other. When a ship from an English-speaking location such as the United States would like to ask for assistance from a passing ship from, for instance, Brazil, the language barrier can quickly become a problem. Seaspeak allows these ships [...]

Cliches: Turns of Phrase or Power Moves?

Cliches are the lynchpin of one particular linguistic maneuver that works in subtle but impactful ways. Thought termination, also called the thought-terminating cliche, can end conversations instantly and even keep people beholden to an ideology. How do these innocent phrases carry such an effect? It all comes down to how people relate to each other. What Is Thought Termination? [...]

2025-03-27T17:35:42-04:00March 27th, 2025|Communication, Culture, Education|

How Luxury Brands Use Language to Appeal to Consumers

The psychology of marketing has been a fascinating area of study for over a century. One crucial aspect of marketing psychology (particularly when looking at luxury brands) is the use of language. Detecting the unique vocabulary choices and tone of a luxury advertising campaign or sales pitch can be meticulous if you’re unfamiliar with these techniques. However, once you’ve been [...]

2025-03-20T19:01:43-04:00March 20th, 2025|Communication, Culture, Languages|

Jargon: The Language Microcosm

What Is Jargon? Jargon is a type of language microcosm; its own linguistic choices are tied directly to a particular group. Jargon does not need to reference complex issues (although it can). It must only encapsulate niche-specific ideas in words that most people outside this niche do not understand. The medical field, for instance, is ripe with jargon. Have [...]

2025-03-12T17:08:51-04:00March 12th, 2025|Communication, Education|

Life (and Language) Aboard a Ship

When people think of sailing today, they often think of iconic franchises such as the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Jack Sparrow's irreverent and smarmy portrayal contributes to the image of sailors as little more than uneducated laborers, but their language belies something more: a specificity that can only come from carefully crafted jargon that keeps a ship functioning [...]

Kitchen Slang: People and Places

Kitchen staff need to be able to communicate not just about who is doing what but also how the clientele are behaving. Because language adapts to its speakers’ needs, this has resulted in a vocabulary tailored toward obscuring meaning from those not familiar with the culinary environment. In this way, restaurant workers can convey valuable information without stirring up [...]

2025-02-20T12:59:06-05:00February 19th, 2025|Communication, Languages, Uncategorized|

The Rise of a Leader: The Babble Hypothesis

Understanding the Babble Hypothesis While the concept of the babble hypothesis has been around for decades, it was not until the late 2010s and early 2020s that the concept truly gained traction for further study. The babble hypothesis posits that when a group is missing a leader, the person who speaks the most is also the most likely to fill [...]

2025-02-20T13:19:56-05:00February 11th, 2025|Communication, Culture, History|

History’s Weirdest Kitchen Terms

The kitchen is a place of community and contentment—so it’s no surprise that throughout history, it’s also been a haven for tomfoolery. While much of today’s kitchen slang has arisen as a response to the stressful working conditions back of house and the potential problems guests cause in the front, some remnants of this comical side of the culinary landscape [...]

2025-02-24T19:27:56-05:00February 5th, 2025|Communication, Education, Languages|

When Love Is Too Much: Love-Bombing

Social media intro: Have you ever watched a man sweep a woman off her feet, taking her completely by surprise as he proclaims that he “can’t help himself”? Or perhaps you’ve heard a girl tell her boyfriend that her life would be meaningless without him by her side. While these utterances can be signs of affection and love, they can [...]

2025-02-25T17:56:48-05:00January 29th, 2025|Communication, Education, Languages|
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