Six Tuscan Poets, by Giorgio Vasari, 1544.

Six Tuscan Poets, by Giorgio Vasari, 1544. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota.

Communication

Volume V, Number 2 | spring 2012

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Preamble

Word Order

By Lewis H. Lapham

The Internet is blessed with undoubtedly miraculous applications, but language is not yet one of them. Technology cannot displace the primacy of words.

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In the Panthéon

By Philipp Blom

History is written by the victors. So, too, in the world of ideas. Phillipp Blom on a group of thinkers far more daring than those enshrined in the Panthéon.

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Map

Living Languages

Facts and figures on the languages of the world.

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Miscellany

François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand complained late in life that he was going deaf. When someone mentioned the malady to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, he remarked, “He only thinks he is deaf because he can no longer hear anyone talking about him.”

1983 | New York City

On the Contrary

Gloria Steinem is fed up with conversational double standards.More

1885 | Camden, NJ

Borrowing a Simile

Walt Whitman marvels at the ceaseless evolution of slang in America.More

1985 | Paris

To Keep the Word Alive

Writing under totalitarianism.More

Charts & Graphs

Sticks and Stones

Libel cases and their outcomes.

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Political consultant and media advisor Mandy Grunwald.

Greek geographer and historian Strabo.

Portrait of English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Former chairman of the FCC Newton Minow.

Chinese statesman Li Si.

American linguist Arika Okrent.

American author Gay Talese.

Depiction of Greek philosopher Plato.

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969

St. Benedict

Belgian Symbolist poet, playwright, and essayist Maurice Maeterlinck.

Saint Benedict & Maurice Maeterlinck

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