language

Sandy notes 1: Systems and the language of causation

It’s so tempting to say “Global warming caused superstorm Sandy.” And it is so easy to counter with “Storms like Sandy happen. You can’t say that global warming caused a particular storm!” Much human folly nowadays comes from believing that identi…

got a dictionary?

Thanks Mike. My perspective is that jargon is the leading edge of the evolution of language (and to a certain extent culture). As with most emerging species, most jargon does not survive or spread very far outside its original environment. Some of…

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