Jesús Romero-Trillo

Category: Language

  • 212 only

    Mastrionotti: Fink. That’s a Jewish name, isn’t it?Barton: Yeah.Mastrionotti: Yeah, I didn’t think this dump was restricted. AT THE Lingua Franca blog, Ben Yagoda describes a conversation Ruth Fraklin of the New Republic over anti-Semitic code language in America before and during the second world war. “Restricted” is perhaps the baldest of all the terms (as used by…

  • Who were the physiocrats?

    IF YOU asked twenty well-educated souls to identify a physiocrat, only a couple could help you out. Writers like A.R.J. Turgot, the Marquis de Condorcet and Francois Quesnay are not household names, unlike Adam Smith or David Ricardo. But they are important. According to one late-19th century historian, the physiocrats (who called themselves the “économistes”) created “the…

  • Move over, George Orwell – this is how to sound really clever | Mind your language

    A new book lists 600 words to use if you want to impress. But when is it appropriate to deviate from plain English and indulge in sesquipedalian behaviour? Aged 17, I heard a confession that I found exhilarating. Mr Downs, my English teacher, confessed that he’d read the dictionary. Cover to cover. Most sixth-formers at…

  • Close but Not Quite

    It’s commendable to add nuance or texture to our prose with a word that’s slightly out of the ordinary. Just be sure the word you pick is the right one, used the right way. It’s not enough to be in the general vicinity. And a misstep is all the more glaring if the word is…

  • Words are stupid, words are fun | Mind your language

    As words fall in and out of fashion, new ones enter the language. But some, such as autonaut, chassimover and pupamotor, failed to reach the assembly line English is a marvellous mashup of words. A few Celtic placenames. A stock of Old English words (day and night, black and white, food and drink, life and…

  • I Know How You’re Feeling, I Read Chekhov

    I Know How You’re Feeling, I Read Chekhov

    By PAM BELLUCK Casey Kelbaugh for The New York TimesEmanuele Castano and David Comer Kidd worked on a study that found that reading literary fiction leads to better performance on tests of social perception.