Louder than words
by Benjamin K. Bergen · first published 2012
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3HN commenters
2013–2017first – last mentioned
67% recommend33% neutral
Whether it's brusque, convincing, fraught with emotion, or dripping with innuendo, language is fundamentally a tool for conveying meaning - a uniquely human magic trick in which you vibrate your vocal cords to make your innermost thoughts pop up in someone else's mind. You can use it to talk about all sorts of things - from your new labradoodle puppy to the expansive gardens at Versailles, from Roger Federer's backhand to things that don't exist at all, like flying pigs. And when you talk, your listener fills in lots of details you didn't mention - the curliness of the dog's fur or the vast st
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If you haven't read it, it sounds like you would also enjoy 'Louder than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning' (http://www.amazon.com/Louder-Than-Words-Science-Meaning/dp/0...) I haven't ready Metaphors we live by, I'll pick it up!
on “An Open Letter to Larry Page on the Matter of Hiring Ray Kurzweil” ↗…Lakoff: - Philosophy In The Flesh http://amzn.to/2xFTKU7 - The Political Mind http://amzn.to/2vU9rF1 Gilles Fauconnier, Mark Turner: - The Way We Think http://amzn.to/2xFv4ep Benjamin K. Bergen: - Louder Than Words http://amzn.to/2wwsMhv
on “Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models?” ↗…those; Ann Lamott's Bird by Bird is another. There also exist much better (and more accurate and scientific) resources about how language actually affects the way we think about things. Benjamin Bergen's Louder than Words is an excellent start, and virtually anything from Lakoff's long list of publications is worth reading—Metaphors We Live By is the classic, but Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things in particular is excellent…
on “George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” (1946)” ↗