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Steven Pinker: 10 ‘grammar rules’ it’s OK to break (sometimes)
The Guardian: Among the many challenges of writing is dealing with rules of correct usage: whether to worry about split infinitives, fused participles, and the meanings of words such as "fortuitous", "decimate" and "comprise". Supposedly a writer has to choose between two radically different approaches to these rules. Prescriptivists prescribe how language ought to be used. They uphold standards of excellence and a respect for the best of our civilisation, and are a bulwark against relativism, vulgar populism and the dumbing down of literate culture. Descriptivists describe how language actually is used.
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Thinking Like A Scientist Can Help Overcome Allure Of Appearances
NPR: Not long ago, Caren Walker, a PhD student at the University of California at Berkeley, was hiking in Tilden Park with her brother Michael when they came upon what looked like wild carrots. "Yum, yum, yum!" exclaimed Michael (with perhaps greater eloquence, but no less enthusiasm). "These will make a tasty soup!" Hours later at the hospital, drinking a thick black tar to prevent the effects of what turned out to be poison hemlock, Caren wished she'd heeded her initial skepticism about the wisdom of cooking up the colorful roots. "Silly brother," she could have said, but didn't, "don't you know that appearances can be deceiving?" Read the whole story: NPR
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What Makes a Family of Artists
The New Yorker: The debate over the nature of creativity is an old one: Is creative talent, be it novelistic, musical, or artistic, something that you’re born with, or is it something that anyone, with practice and dedication, can acquire? Anecdotally, the first option presents a strong case. The Waugh family produced three generations of novelists: Arthur, then Alec and Evelyn, then Auberon (Evelyn’s son). From the affair between H. G. Wells and Rebecca West came the novelist Anthony West.
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For Managers, Upholding Fairness Comes at a Cost
The French novelist Victor Hugo wrote that “being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.” A recent study on fairness in the workplace may lend support to his claim. Although fairness is typically heralded as something good, psychological scientists Russell E. Johnson (Michigan State University), Klodiana Lanaj (University of Florida), and Christopher M. Barnes (University of Washington) found that for those charged with enforcing it, workplace justice may actually come at a cost. Abiding by rules and procedures has been shown to drain mental resources, leading the researchers to hypothesize that enforcing the rules could also be mentally draining.
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The Psychology of Oversharing Facebook Couples
The Atlantic: Okay, so maybe you don’t want to know the nickname that girl from your high school has given her new paramour, just like you don’t particularly want to know the color of the daisies he bought her last week, or what they ate on their anniversary date, or the fact that he is, hands down, the best boyfriend ever. Surely, there are other, more valuable things that could be taking up the space in your brain currently occupied by the knowledge that she’s the luckiest girl in the world. But chances are you know these things anyway, because Facebook knows them, too. ...
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The Price We Pay For Adventure
Imagine that you have an extraordinary opportunity—a once-in-a-lifetime chance to ascend Everest or sit with the Dalai Lama or rocket into outer space. This will be the peak experience of your lifetime and, what’s more, you will have the added pleasure of narrating your adventure for years to come. Or will you? Many of us hunger for special experiences, things none of our friends have done or will do. But do these adventures really make us happy in the long run? Are they worth having? Harvard University psychological scientist Gus Cooney is not so sure.
