Newly Ancient

George Orwell posited that thought could be controlled and manipulated through the language we speak (in his case, Newspeak). Many other philosophers and scientists have pondered this question, while most politicians simply accept it as fact and use it to their advantage. However, there has been a disturbing lack of empirical evidence for this phenomena. A psychologist at Stanford has conducted a study showing that the gender of nouns in a language influence our perceptions of that noun. The French, who use the masculine pont for bridges, generally highlight their elements of power and strength, while Germans (who use the feminine Brücke) describe bridges as elegant and airy. You can see the bridge for yourself at NPR and see which set of adjectives matches your perceptions. Does this make English more neutral and accurate, since it largely lacks gender?

Via the excellent linguistic twit ThatWhichMatter.

In response to a horrendous chart by John Boehner, Robert Palmer released a well-designed visual aid to the Democrat’s health care proposal. At its best, information design can help the general public to understand a complicated issue. At its worst, as demonstrated by the House Minority Leader, information design becomes a tool for obfuscation and political maneuvering rather than education. Instead of muddying the waters with absurd “death panel” claims and confusing charts, Republicans should commit to an honest debate about policy and ideology. Of course, that’ll never happen: they’d lose.

(Via idsgn)