words words words

'do you not tire of boats or the fiery firmament?'

[via-appia]

Bronze statuette of Hermes

Greek or Roman, 1st century B.C.–1st century A.D.

[are-you-pure-yet-deactivated201]

[pinakotekams]

[faxxia]

[via-appia]

Venus of Arles, possibly a copy of the Aphrodite of Thespiae by Praxiteles

Roman, late 1st century BC

[ionlyeatrice-deactivated2019081]

[johnnybravo20]

Persee et Andromede (by Grufnik)

[via-appia]

Twilight, 1879

Olin Levi Warner (1844 – 1896)

[preppycolonialism]

How to pluralize loanwords

When you don't know anything about linguistics: The plural of "memorandum" is "memoranda", why can't people get it right

When you know a little about linguistics: The plural of "memorandum" should just be "memorandums" because that's how people naturally say it, "memoranda" is just prescriptivism

When you know a lot about linguistics: Oh my god? So certain English words borrowed from Latin and Greek have competing plural forms, with one form using the English plural -s and the other using a borrowed Latin or Greek form? Do you realize how crazy that is - a language borrowing *inflectional morphology* from another language? And here the two competing plural forms have become markers of education, expertise, and social class, isn't that incredible?

[paxmachina]

Unknown - Bushwick, Brooklyn

Photo: LoisInWonderland on Flickr

[0001012-blog]

[industrealized]

Henri  Matisse

[art-and-things-of-beauty]

[art-and-things-of-beauty]

Paul Meyerheim (German, 1842-1915) - Good Friends, watercolour and gouache, 29,8 x 41,2 cm. 1898.

[armie-hammer]

Jenny Slate for Glamour Magazine

[yepitsisabella-deactivated20200]

[preppycolonialism]

people who dont even care about language: how can you just CHANGE grammar??? add new wORds?? unacceptable!!! language must never change!!!!!11 kids these days cant even spell!!

people who study language: ANARCHY!! ANARCHY!!!! LANGUAGE IS FLUID AND WORDS AREN'T REAL!! change! the! grammar! rules!! burn a dictionary!!! NO ONE CARES!!!!!

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

I am aware, sure, I am aware. Catastrophically aware.

Sylvia Plath, from The Unabridged Journals Of Sylvia Plath (via ontheedgeofdarkness)

[marci1900]