Why Do We Raise a Cow but Eat Beef?  

by Brandy | Oct 31, 2024

Most English speakers are so accustomed to the fact that we split animal names from the food products made from their flesh that they don’t notice unless it’s brought to their attention.   Think:  Cow – Beef  Calf – Veal   Pig – Pork   Sheep –...

How the French, Religion, and the Bubonic Plague Forced me to Use the Word Y’all 

by Brandy | Jul 17, 2024

Any case of language contact will almost certainly result in change to both languages. That’s more pressing in situations where an invading language takes a position of power. E.g., the Norman French invasion of England resulted in almost half of our 1000 most...

Monsters & Metaphors Made Flesh  

by Brandy | Mar 29, 2024

On the Monster in Western Society The word monster, coming from the Latin root monstrum, meaning a divine omen or a portent, first makes its appearance (to my knowledge) in the written English language in Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale,   “Was neuere wight sith that this...

Poetry is about feeling  

by Brandy | Oct 17, 2023

I’m going to ask for a little bit more of your time for this one, because I’d like you sit through a couple of videos. And if you can’t, you’re not going to get very much out of this blog. In which case, I’d like you to skip it.   I want to ask you to feel...

Popular vs Good: The Leviathan of Social Demand and the Ethics of Revolution  

by Brandy | Sep 27, 2023

In April of 1651, a 63-year-old white man published a book that would go on to influence the rise and fall of governments, societies, nations. Thomas Hobbe’s Leviathan detailed the theory of the social contract, the idea that in a society, people give up the power of...