Language acquisition professor Rebecca Woods assembled what linguists call a corpus (“a representative sample of language as used by certain speakers”) from a BBC show (the makeup competition Glow Up) that’s regularly complained about for its young participants’ constant use of like. Studying this corpus, she found that the word isn’t just filler: it’s actually governed by a sort of grammar and serves a real purpose. – The Conversation
Tag: 08.19.19
A Young Breakdancer From Provincial Russia Dreams Of Olympic Gold
Sergey Chernyshev, 18, began learning breakdancing from his father, also named Sergey, who picked it up from VHS tapes that made it into newly de-Sovietized Russia in the 1990s. “In many ways, the story of the Chernyshevs … is the story of break dancing over the past three decades, with its unlikely journey from the streets of New York to every corner of the globe and to its surprising inclusion, pending a final vote in December, in the Olympics.” – The New York Times
Near-Total Sweep For Women At The Hugo Awards
Okay, they didn’t win every single prize there was at the annual honors for science fiction (men won for the best film and television scripts, for instance), but female creators took home the awards for best novel, novella, novelette, short story, graphic story, fan fiction, fanzine, fancast, and fan art. Not bad for a genre that was considered more or less closed to most women not so long ago. – The Verge
Why Is Joe Rogan One Of The Most Popular Podcasters In America? Guys, And What He Gets About Them
“Few men in America are as popular among American men as Joe Rogan. It’s a massive group congregating in plain sight, and it’s made up of people you know from high school, guys who work three cubicles down, who are still paying off student loans, who forward jealous-girlfriend memes, who spot you at the gym. … So many people in the content business right now are trying, and failing, to get the attention of these men, and yet somehow Joe Rogan has managed to recruit a following the size of Florida.” Devin Gordon does a deep dive into Rogan’s gut appeal, what’s powerful about it, and what’s unsettling. – The Atlantic
A Giant Hand With A Glowering Face Is Freaking Out New Zealand’s Capital
The 16½-foot-tall sculpture, titled Quasi and perched on top of City Gallery Wellington to glare at passersby, was sent up from Christchurch by its creator, artist Ronnie van Hout — and Wellingtonians are describing it with such phrases as “nightmarish fever dream” and “some hideous malevolent being.” It will be there for three years. – The Guardian
Silicon Valley: What If We’re Not Making The World A Better Place?
For a long time, the prevailing posture of the Silicon Valley élite was smugness bordering on hubris. Now the emotional repertoire is expanding to include shame—or, at least, the appearance of shame. – The New Yorker
‘Queer Eye’ Is Trying To Make Shopping, Redecorating, And Consuming Luxury Goods Into Spiritual Self-Improvement
Amanda Hess: “As its gurus lead the men (and occasionally, women) in dabbing on eye cream, selecting West Elm furniture, preparing squid-ink risotto and acquiring gym memberships, they are building the metaphorical framework for an internal transformation. Their salves penetrate the skin barrier to soothe loneliness, anxiety, depression, grief, low self-esteem, absentee parenting and hoarding tendencies. The makeover is styled as an almost spiritual conversion. It’s the meaning of life as divined through upgraded consumer choices.” – The New York Times
The Anthropologists Who Thought They Could End Racism, Sexism
Franz Boas concluded that “there is not one human culture but many, and he started referring to ‘cultures,’ in the plural. He was engaged in ethnography, and he believed that the job of the ethnographer was to disappear, in effect, into the culture of the people being studied, to understand from the inside what it means to be male or female, to give or receive a gift, to bury one’s dead.” – The New Yorker
UK Museum Attendance Up Six Percent After A Couple Down Years
Attendance dropped by 1% in both 2017 and 2016, and by 0.5% in 2015. But new figures from the national tourism agency show a decisive turnaround, with attendance across 444 museums and art galleries growing by 6% on the previous year. – Arts Professional
Why Was This UK Museum Using Facial Recognition On Its Visitors?
A spokeswoman for National Museums Liverpool defended its use of the enhanced surveillance technology as an additional security measure for the exhibition, titled “China’s First Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors,” which ran from February to the end of October last year. The technology was used on the advice of the local police and not at the request of the Chinese lenders, artnet News understands. – artnet