Time-Travel, Subtitles, and the Great Linguistic Plot Hole
Why Shakespeare would sound like a stranger, and a Tang scholar might ask you to write instead.
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Separated at Birth: Welsh & Breton
Separated at Birth — Welsh & Breton “Cymraeg” and “Brezhoneg” may live on opposite shores of the Channel, but they share ancient DNA. And headwear. Welsh and Breton are the only surviving daughters of Brittonic, the Celtic language once spoken across much of Roman and post-Roman Britain. As Anglo-Saxon pressure mounted in the 5th and
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Automotive Design II: Streamline Moderne & Art Deco
As the Roaring Twenties tripped over their own excesses and landed face-first in the Great Depression, car designers turned to Mae West for inspiration
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The Evolution of Language II: Mother Tongues and Family Trees
Have you tasted the delightful chaos of linguistic diversity? What is this obsession with Indo-European? Why is Korea furry? Why are platypuses Sui?
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The Evolution of Language I: From Grunts to Grammar
Language is the crown jewel of human evolution — or at least the loudest one. From Neanderthal grunts to diplomatic double-speak, it’s the tool we use to share dreams, issue threats, tell jokes, invent gods, and argue about dinner.
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Potato: A Deep-Rooted Word
The humble potato – knobbly, versatile, and sometimes suspiciously shaped like a politician – is far more than just something to mash, fry, or boil. Whores, vodka, and influencers, this tale has it all
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Chopsticks: How billions use them daily and yet no one really knows what they’re doing
Chopsticks: How Billions Use Them Daily and yet No one Really Knows What They’re Doing Chopsticks. Utterly simple, maddeningly fiddly, and wielded daily by over two billion people.[1] You’d think we’d have this whole “how to hold them” business down to a science by now — or at the very least, a flowchart. But no. When
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Automotive Design I: The Dawn of Mass Production
Automotive Design I: The Dawn of Mass Production One cannot think of antisemitism[1] mass production without thinking of Henry Ford. His introduction of the moving assembly line for the Model T in 1913 had a deep and everlasting impact on automotive design. Craftsmanship and customisation were shown the door to make room for a new age of
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Horseless Carriages? Electric Cars? The Early Days of Automobiles
Horseless Carriages? Electric Cars? The Early Days of Automobiles In days of old, when knights were bold… OK, that’s quite enough schoolboy humour for one day, but the point is we’re going back in time. Back to the days before constraints of mass production and standardised forms, back to the very first cars, the horseless
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The Power of Love: Why is Automotive Design so Interesting?
The Power of Love: Why is Automotive Design so Interesting? Automotive design is more than the creation of a static piece of art, it’s more than the creation of a purely utilitarian device for moving people from place a to place b, it reflects culture, technology, politics, and aspirations. Let’s begin by looking at the
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