Tribune
automatic translateGlobalization and linguistic diversity
Globalization is the growing connection between economies, states, cultures, and human flows, which accelerated in the second half of the 20th century. Linguistic diversity is measured by the number of living languages, dialects, scripts, and sign systems, as well as the distribution of speakers among them.
The history of Turkic borrowings into the Russian language
The Turkic languages have provided the Russian vocabulary with one of the oldest and most stable groups of loanwords: the words "money," "pencil," "iron," "sarai," and hundreds of others came from the steppe and Volga dialects.
Anglicisms in Internet slang
English words form the core of online slang in dozens of languages. A gamer from Seoul, a student from Hamburg, and a schoolgirl from Perm write " lol," " easy, " and " gg, " and in each case, the same borrowing history lies behind the letters.
The Peter Principle
The Peter Principle describes the mechanism of organizational dynamics whereby employees are promoted until they reach a position where they can no longer cope with their responsibilities. Over time, hierarchical structures become filled with managers who have exhausted their professional capabilities.
Why are we prone to procrastination?
Procrastination primarily occurs when a task evokes unpleasant feelings, and delaying it provides a quick, short-term relief—anxiety decreases, tension subsides, and attention shifts away from the source of discomfort.
Haitian Creole
Haitian Creole developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the colony of Saint-Domingue. The language developed on sugarcane plantations, where intensive contact was recorded between French colonists and enslaved Africans.
The Streisand Effect
In some cases, attempting to kill an idea can paradoxically lead to it becoming popular instead. Banned books and music albums that become popular precisely because they were banned are the most famous examples of this effect.
Uncertainty aversion
People are more concerned about the uncertainty of the wait than the length of the wait.
Confirmation bias
We demand extremely strong evidence for ideas that do not fit our beliefs, while accepting extremely weak evidence for ideas that do fit our beliefs.
Hick’s Law
The effort required to make a decision increases with the number of options. The more options you offer, the more difficult it is for customers to decide.
Social proof
When people don’t know how to behave, they blindly copy what everyone else does.
Cultural parasitism
The ideas and beliefs that are most widely held in society are those that are most likely to be passed on to others, not those that are most likely to be true. Fake news is an example of an idea that spreads very quickly despite being false.
Brandolini’s Law
Brandolini’s Law (also known as the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle ) is an internet aphorism coined by Italian programmer Alberto Brandolini in 2013. Its essence is that the amount of effort required to refute disinformation is an order of magnitude greater than the amount of effort required to create it.
Fredkin’s paradox
Fredkin’s paradox is a concept in decision theory and cognitive psychology that posits an inverse relationship between the similarity of two alternatives and the time spent choosing: the less significant the difference between the options, the more difficult it is for an agent to make a choice.
Lindy effect
The Lindy effect is a statistical principle that posits that the expected lifespan of perishable phenomena—ideas, technologies, texts, social institutions—is directly proportional to the time they have already existed.