When public health campaigns aim to change behavior, they often rely on urgent, directive language. A new comprehensive analysis suggests that telling people exactly what they must do can backfire by ...

I have begun to notice a shift in the way we use language. When many of us speak to artificial intelligence (AI), we do not offer greetings, nuance, or hesitation. We command. Rewrite this, summarise ...

Book One: The functions of language -- Foreword: Red-Eye and the woman problem: A semantic parable -- 1. Language and survival -- What animals shall we imitate? -- Cooperation -- The pooling of ...

The importance of language -- Symbols -- Reports -- Contexts -- Words that don't inform -- Connotations -- Directive language -- How we know what we know -- The little man who wasn't there -- ...