Monday, October 25, 2010

Ha Ha Ha.

That's the London Eye. I learned this fact in a book called Netherland that I read for my Contemporary Imaginations course. It is not a Ferris Wheel at all. How foolish I feel.

By the way, Netherland is by Joseph O'Neill and it's quite a good book, in addition to its inclusion of trivia about the geography of London. I shan't go into it now as I should be doing various and sundry other tasks.

Also, these various and sundry tasks include researching the pragmatic (as in, belonging to pragmatism, not pragmatics, which is different) take on the philosophy of language and language acquisition, and this leads me to recommend another thing to my loyal and I'm sure by this time immense group of readers: WNYC's Radio Lab, specifically an episode entitled "Words." Well, I told you I was an English major, didn't I? Here I am doing a philosophy project and all I can think about is language. And Public Radio. TYPICAL. But anyway, that episode of Radio Lab discusses oodles of interesting things, such as how Shakespeare originated an absurd quantity of our current familiar phrases and aphorisms in English, AND the startling question of whether pre-verbal children actually "think" or not - the conclusion of one scientist being that they do not. Check it out.

Now I return to my studies, hoping to have left you all slightly more enlightened. (TYPICAL)

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