After our conversation about monastic sign language, Cameron Brick, a social psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, emailed to share his own stories about nonverbal communication and the power of silence. This is part of a...
A listener leaves us a voicemail about a sign his high school science teacher posted in the classroom to encourage students to keep the noise down. It read “Laboratory — more of the first 5, less of the last 7.” As in more of the first...
In deafening workplaces, like sawmills and factories, workers develop their own elaborate sign language to discuss everything from how their weekend went to when the boss is on his way. Plus, English speakers borrowed the words lieutenant and...
A Dallas, Texas, listener is annoyed when he sees a price listed with the dollar sign after the amount, rather than before, as in 500$ rather than $500. In some parts of the world, however, the currency symbol routinely follows the number. This is...
Members of our Facebook group have been sharing stories of signs altered in funny ways, such as the one that someone with a can of spray paint changed from “No Logging Allowed” to “No Flogging Allowed.” This is part of a...
Burqueño slang, spoken by residents of Albuquerque, New Mexico, includes such expressions as umbers, said ominously when someone’s caught doing something wrong, as well as get down, meaning “to get out of a vehicle” and put gas for...