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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Word for Word

By Ben Zimmer

Peter Mark Roget’s Thesaurus was the creation of an obsessive list-maker that became a tool and a temptation for generations of writers.

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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.”

c. 1860 | United States

Horsepower

The thrilling history of the Pony Express.More

1826 | Philadelphia

Invention of Letters

Seeking the means of civilization.More

1789 | Philadelphia

Proofreading

Benjamin Franklin promotes the proper usage of English.More

Charts & Graphs

Decoded

Artifacts used to decipher ancient languages.

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French man of letters Denis Diderot.

English novelist, essayist, and critic George Orwell.

Painting of Benjamin Franklin reading a batch of papers next to a classical bust.

Printer and publisher Aldus Manutius the Elder.

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

Depiction of Greek philosopher Plato.

Painting of François Rabelais.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921

Portrait of Francis Bacon in sixteenth-century armor.

Missing contributor image silhouette

Francis Bacon & Joan Didion

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