TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why don't "tough" and "dough" rhyme? | Arika Okrent
Spelling reformers have been advocating for changes to make English spelling more intuitive and less irregular. One example of its messiness: take the “g-h” sound from “enough,” the “o” sound from “women” and the “t-i” sound from...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed A brief history of graffiti - Kelly Wall - MENA
Spray-painted subway cars, tagged bridges, mural-covered walls -- graffiti pops up boldly throughout our cities. And it turns out: it's nothing new. Graffiti has been around for thousands of years. And across that span of time, it's...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How to make your writing funnier - Cheri Steinkellner
Did you ever notice how many jokes start with _Did you ever notice?" And what's the deal with "What's the deal?" There's a lot of funny to be found simply by noticing the ordinary, everyday things you don't ordinarily notice every day....
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How many verb tenses are there in English? - Anna Ananichuk
How many different verb tenses are there in a language like English? At first, the answer seems obvious - there's past, present, and future. But it isn't quite that simple. Anna Ananichuk explains how thanks to something called...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: A brief history of Spanish | Ilan Stavans
Beginning in the third century BCE, the Romans conquered the Iberian peninsula. This period gave rise to several regional languages in the area that's now Spain, including Castilian, Catalan, and Galician. One of these would become...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Capturing authentic narratives - Michele Weldon
Journalism can be much more than reporting. An authentic, human narrative touches audiences and keeps them reading. Learn how to shape a human-centered news story, and the importance of facts, context and heart.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: A brief history of plural words - John McWhorter
All it takes is a simple S to make most English words plural. But it hasn't always worked that way (and there are, of course, exceptions). John McWhorter looks back to the good old days when English was newly split from German -- and...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: One of the most difficult words to translate... - Krystian Aparta
As simple as it seems, it's often impossible to accurately translate the word you without knowing a lot more about the situation where it's being said. Krystian Aparta describes the specific reasons why it can be difficult, citing...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why should you read Virgil's "Aeneid"? - Mark Robinson
In 19 BC, the Roman poet Virgil suffered heatstroke and died on his journey back to Italy. On his deathbed, he thought about the manuscript he had been working on for over ten years, an epic poem called the "Aeneid." Unsatisfied with the...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The world's most mysterious book - Stephen Bax
Deep inside Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library lies a 240 page tome. Recently carbon dated to around 1420, its pages feature looping handwriting and hand drawn images seemingly stolen from a dream. It is called the Voynich...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Mysteries of vernacular: Jade - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel
Now known for its beauty and green hue, the stone jade was previously thought to espouse magical properties, such as kidney treatment. Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel explain the word's travels from 15th century to Spain to today (and why...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: What makes something "Kafkaesque"? - Noah Tavlin
The term Kafkaesque has entered the vernacular to describe unnecessarily complicated and frustrating experiences, especially with bureaucracy. But does standing in a long line to fill out confusing paperwork really capture the richness...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Mysteries of vernacular: Window - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel
Metaphoric compounds, like the combination of the words wind and eye to represent a window, populated Norse and Old English. Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel describe how this love of metaphor created the word window.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Are Elvish, Klingon, Dothraki and Na'vi real languages? - John McWhorter
What do Game of Thrones' Dothraki, Avatar's Na'vi, Star Trek's Klingon and LOTR's Elvish have in common? They are all fantasy constructed languages, or conlangs. Conlangs have all the delicious complexities of real languages: a high...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Beware of nominalizations (AKA zombie nouns) - Helen Sword
Few mistakes sour good writing like nominalizations, or, as Helen Sword likes to call them, zombie nouns. Zombie nouns transform simple and straightforward prose into verbose and often confusing writing. Keep your nouns away from...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Mysteries of vernacular: Robot - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel
In 1920, Czech writer Karel _apek wrote a play about human-like machines, thereby inventing the term robot from the Central European word for forced labor. Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel explain how the science fiction staple earned its...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The science of stage fright (and how to overcome it) - Mikael Cho
Heart racing, palms sweating, labored breathing? No, you're not having a heart attack -- it's stage fright! If speaking in public makes you feel like you're fighting for your life, you're not alone. But the better you understand your...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Birth of a nickname - John McWhorter
Where do nicknames come from? Why are Ellens called Nellie and Edwards Ned? It's all a big misunderstanding from the early days of the English language, a misunderstanding that even the word nickname itself derives from. John McWhorter...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Should we get rid of standardized testing? - Arlo Kempf
Although standardized testing is a particularly hot topic in education right now, this approach to measurement has been in use for two millennia. And while the results of standardized testing can help us understand some things, they can...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Mysteries of vernacular: Odd - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel
Whether we're talking all things unusual or mathematical, the origins of the word odd point to the Indo-European root uzdho, which means pointing upwards. Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel explain the evolution from the term for a triangle...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why is there a "b" in doubt? - Gina Cooke
Say the word "doubt" aloud. What is that "b" doing there? Does it have any purpose? Gina Cooke explains the long and winding history of "doubt" and why the spelling, though it seems random, is a wink to its storied past.
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Mysteries of vernacular: Keister - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel
Originally meaning a woven container, the word keister has roots all over the place. The devil's tool box? Sure. A safe? That too. So, how did it become associated with the buttochs? Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel get to the bottom of...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Mysteries of vernacular: Gorgeous - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel
From whirlpools and ravines to superlative beauty, what is the trajectory of the word gorgeous? Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel reveal the surprising variations in meaning (and what turtleneck-like fashion has to do with it).
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Mysteries of vernacular: Bewilder - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel
The history of the word bewilder is more straightforward than you might think. Roots can be traced back to the Old English words wilde (undomesticated) and deor (untamed animals), eventually combined into the word wilderness. Jessica...