Wordsmithing

Let grammar, syntax, semantics, punctuation, and spelling into your life! Even the most energetic and wonderful mess has to be turned into sentences...

Resources

Senses

• Vision verbs dominate in conversation across cultures, but the ranking of non-visual verbs varies http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pubman/item/escidoc:2045058:10/component/escidoc:2109915/SanRoque_etal_2015.3.pdf
• English speakers, you stink at identifying smells https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530140.300-english-speakers-you-stink-at-identifying-smells

Inflationary language

• And punctuation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcGA4alhPas

Other times

• For the Aymara people living in the Andes, the past lies ahead and the future lies behind http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~nunez/web/articles/Taipei%20Times%20-%20archives.pdf
• In Australia, the timeline of the Pormpuraaw, a remote Aboriginal community, runs along the east-west axis. The past is east. Time for the Pormpuraaw flows from left to right if they are facing south, right to left if they are facing north, towards the body if they are facing east, and away from the body if they are facing west. https://tylertretsven.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/time-and-space-in-pormpuraaw/
• In China, Mandarin speakers sometimes represent time along a vertical axis, with the past above and the future below http://psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/mandarin-time-2010.pdf
• Time for the Yupno flows uphill and is not even linear http://anthropology.net/2012/06/01/the-uphill-climb-of-time-for-the-yupno-of-papua-new-guinea/
• How Languages Construct Time http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/language-time.pdf