Captions provided by CCTubes – Captioning the Internet! It’s the Great American Read!
Vote for America’s favorite novel: https://to.pbs.org/2Jes2X5
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English is a confusing language for many reasons. But the irregular verbs might be the most confusing part. Why is “told” the past tense of “tell” but “smold” isn’t the past tense of “smell”? It turns out that the study of irregular verbs can teach us a lot about how languages evolve. This week, we look at how the era of Big Data is unlocking secrets behind the weirdness of words.
OTHER VIDEOS TO CHECK OUT:
“The Zipf Mystery” – Vsauce https://youtu.be/fCn8zs912OE
“Trending Artists of the 17th Century” – The Art Assignment https://youtu.be/7eq3D9Q9lUA
REFERENCES:
Uncharted: Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture – Erez Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel https://amzn.to/2MLBEHF
Words and Rules – Steven Pinker https://amzn.to/2vKL1kf
Lieberman, Erez, et al. “Quantifying the evolutionary dynamics of language.” Nature 449.7163 (2007): 713.
Michel, Jean-Baptiste, et al. “Quantitative analysis of culture using millions of digitized books.” Science (2010): 1199644.
Hanley, M. L., Joos, M., & Fein, T. (1937). Word index to James Joyce’s Ulysses. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
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It’s Okay To Be Smart is hosted by Joe Hanson, Ph.D.
Writer: Joe Hanson
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