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Is Therapy-Speak Ruining Our Ability To Speak To One Another?

Over the last decade or so, with the vast expansion of social media networks, a new, seemingly sophisticated language sits on modern society’s tongue. Some call it therapy-speak. Or psychobabble. But despite its prevalence, the language is divisive. - The Guardian

Tough Love For Shakespeare Through A Racial Lens

In a sweeping yet forensic 336 pages, “The Great White Bard” argues that “Shakespeare’s texts are a reservoir of what is known as race-making” — how language can define racial identity and establish hierarchy. - The New York Times

Readers Want Comfort Fiction, It Appears

And Colleen Hoover is on the bestseller lists because that's what she provides, in every single book she writes, no matter the genre. - The Guardian (UK)

Professors Are Using AI To Cheat Academic Journals

That's only if you consider AI cheating, of course - which apparently many scientific journals do not? - Wired

Get Rid Of Your Physical Books

There's just no need to have the dust-collectors cluttering up your house. - Slate

What Makes AI Run?

Theft. "Pirated books are being used as inputs for computer programs that are changing how we read, learn, and communicate. The future promised by AI is written with stolen words." - The Atlantic

Too Much: The “-Ification” Of Everything

The suffix “-ification” (also “-ization”), usually attached to words that end in “-ify,” describes change, the process of something becoming different from what it once was, as in “gentrification” or “globalization” or “Californication." - The New Yorker

The Long Quest To Decipher The Rapa Nui Glyphs Of Easter Island

"What makes rongorongo so difficult is that ... no one is quite sure whether it is a form of proto-writing or a fully fledged writing system. If the former, are the glyphs pictograms or mnemonic 'cues'? If the latter, is the script ideographic, phonetic, or a mixture of the two?" - History Today

Belarus Labels Two 19th-Century Poems By One Of The Nation’s Great Authors As “Extremist Material”

The two pieces, written during an 1863 rebellion by Belarusians and Poles against the Russian Empire, are by Vincent Dunin-Martsinkevich, whose books are taught in Belarusian schools, whose plays are still regularly produced, and who has several streets named after him. - BBC

Can Graphic Novels Really Teach College-Level Math And Physics?

Two professors who use them explain how the format — visual information via image as well as text, in a form (comics) that very few people find intimidating — can get complex concepts across even to people with math anxiety. - The Conversation

70 Years After It Was Discovered, An Ancient Near Eastern Script Is Being Deciphered

"The researchers have proposed the name Eteo-Tocharian to describe the newly identified language, which is believed to have been, at one point, one of the official languages of the Kushan Empire" (200BC-700AD). - Artnet

Small Washington Town’s Library Under Siege By Book-Banners

The library director and board initially refused to move any of the books. But, more recently, the library has tried to assuage its adversaries, eliminating the entire young adult nonfiction section and intermingling those books with adult books. It has not worked. - Seattle Times

Iowa School District Used ChatGPT To Decide Which Books To Ban

Each of these texts was reviewed using AI software to determine if it contains a depiction of a sex act. Based on this review, there are 19 texts that will be removed from our 7-12 school library collections and stored in the Administrative Center while we await further guidance or clarity. - Iowa Gazette

Parisian Booksellers Explain How They Are Preparing For The 2024 Olympics

"With a diving suit and helmet, and with dark glasses, earplugs, and a plan for retreat to the countryside." "We'll of course have a few books, but in a corner." "We have other things to think about." "Maybe we'll do one window about sports. Maybe some French flags." - The Paris Review

London Evening Standard Is Hemorrhaging Money And Would Shut Down Without Its Deep-Pocketed Owner, Say Auditors

"The (paper) has lost a further £16m and said it was reliant on extra funds from its owner, Evgeny Lebedev, to continue publishing. … The business model of printing hundreds of thousands of free newspapers aimed at commuters has been hit hard, (with) little sign it will revive anytime soon." - The Guardian

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