Jiminy Jillikers and Semantic Satiation

There's a fantastic episode of The Simpsons called "Radioactive Man" in which a film adaptation of the superhero comic Radioactive Man is being made in the town of Springfield. In the episode, Bart's friend Milhouse is cast as Radioactive Man's sidekick, Fallout Boy.

The episode covers how Milhouse deals with being a movie star, and how it isn't as cool as he thought it would be. After being forced to record each scene multiple times and say Fallout Boy's catchphrase "jiminy jillikers" hundreds of times, Milhouse retorts, "making movies is so horribly repetitive; I've said 'jiminy jillikers!' so many times the words have lost all meaning!"

Try saying "flower" 100 times...

Of course, "jiminy jillikers" is a fictional expression and has no meaning. However, the phenomenon Milhouse is referring to is very real, and is called semantic satiation. This is when a word is repeated so many times that you no longer understand it to have any meaning, and instead just imagine the word as meaningless sounds, nonsense, gibberish, etc.

No matter what the word is, if you repeat it enough times, you'll eventually stop understanding it as a word and start hearing it as little more than the sounds (or phonemes) that constitute the word.

Normally when you repeat a word, your brain triggers the meaning of the word and you therefore understand it. However, when you quickly repeat a word again and again, you trigger a process known as reactive inhibition, which reduces the effectiveness of repeating the word, effectively rendering the process almost null and void. This means that rather than triggering the meaning of the word, you become almost immune to the process, and no meaning is triggered.

While this episode of The Simpsons plays on this idea by using a meaningless word as an example, it still helps explain the concept. You've surely experienced semantic satiation in your lifetime, and if you didn't know what it was before, now you do!

Language's Biggest Challenge: How Do You Define Left and Right?

I was watching an old episode of QI (a fascinating show for those who haven't seen it) when the question of defining left and right to an alien species came up. The general consensus is that you cannot define left and right due to the relative nature of the concepts. Surely, that can't be right. Right?

The reason these concepts are so difficult to define is because they are relative. Put simply, you can't really have left or right without having some reference point.

If you search the definition of "left" on Google, you'll be met with:

"on, towards, or relating to the side of a human body or of a thing which is to the west when the person or thing is facing north."

Google defines right as:

"on, towards, or relating to the side of a human body or of a thing which is to the east when the person or thing is facing north."

A compass provides a fine example of cardinal directions.

How would you define left and right without a compass? These concepts only really exist on a planet with a magnetic field where a system of cardinal directions can be defined...

While left and right are seemingly simple for most of us to understand, around 15% of people seem to struggle with left and right, suffering from a condition known as "Left-Right Confusion".

Can you really blame those who can't tell the difference? The terms are so useless in practice that "my right" is only "your right" when we're facing the same direction. This makes left and right egocentric directions, as their definition is based on the self.

While both up and down are also egocentric, thanks to gravity, their definitions are often universally understood. This is thanks to everyday life, where gravity is almost always found to be pulling us back to our home planet, Earth.

The relative nature of these terms means that in geometry and physics, left and right aren't even bothered with. The Cartesian coordinate system puts matters into numbers, which is often preferred by the hard sciences, rather than the subjectivity preferred by human languages.

However, there are a number of languages and communication systems that don't use the concept of relative direction like left and right. The Guugu Yimithirr Language, which is natively spoken by around 100 aboriginal Australians, seemingly has no time for egocentric directions, preferring a system of cardinal directions to describe the location of objects.

While I feel like I know more about directions, both egocentric and cardinal, I certainly wouldn't feel confident giving directions to aliens. How would you describe left and right? Tell us in the comments below.

This Sentence Is False: The Paradox Of Language

At some point in your life, you've probably been introduced to the "this sentence is false" paradox or one of its many variants. The problem with the statement is that if the sentence is true then the sentence is false, meaning it's true, meaning it's false... we could go on forever. Needless to say the only truth in the sentence is that it's a paradox. Or is it?

This picture is also paradoxical.

A lot of people who spend more time thinking than doing (we'll call them philosophers) believe this to be the case. However, it is only in certain languages that this works.

A few people have tried to get their heads around this conundrum. Some have even stated that it can't be true or false because language can only imply truths, and not ensure them. For example, just because you say it doesn't make it true... or is that false?

How many times have you said something as an absolute when you actually meant it as a generalisation? Think of "French cuisine is fantastic", you can't possibly mean all food in France is amazing. If you do mean that then you've never gone to Quick, the French equivalent of McDonald's. What about the famous "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (this is not a pipe) artwork by Magritte? It was asserting that it was an image of a pipe, rather than an actual pipe... which we think is probably being overly pedantic.

Ceci n'est pas haute cuisine.

All we can really assert about "this sentence is false" is that it can be useful to escape crazed robots and AIs since their programming cannot process logical paradoxes.

Trolling For Hits: Deceptive Headlines

In a move that would have the plain language cause turning in its grave (if it was dead and not just a concept), it seems that news sources and other websites love a bit of trolling.

Using this image entitles you to be a dick on the internet.

The idea that news sources use misleading headlines to boost their hits was brought to our attention by the current affairs and humour website The Gabbler (definitely check it out!), which suggested that even the most reputable sources are using this dirty tactic in order to get more hits and in turn, more money.

We remember seeing a local newspaper article saying that "Brangelina" were coming to town. It turned out that the article was referring to them "in films" and that a new cinema was being constructed. It's fairly annoying to have given a site a hit just because you've been deceived, but if you look at most "headlines" you'll see it's the way the internet works and the same can be said for print too.

If you've ever read Hello!, OK! or any other publication that features a general salutation proceeded by an exclamation mark, shame on you. You should know better! However, their headlines are clear... they correspond directly to the shit that's in the article.

However, seemingly reputable sources regularly use misleading headlines to get people to read their articles. They're usually well written, but they're based on fact and probably don't garner as much attention as so require a little sprucing up. 

So many things to read... how to choose?
By the most interesting headlines, of course!

So here are the two options for every journo:

Clear headlines

They may appear dull and possibly deter readership.  It's a fine line and we feel the right answer depends solely on the material. For newspapers and facts, clear language is key. The BBC's news site normally has decent headlines but we must admit they've fooled us a few times.

Creative headlines:

"Creative" headlines seem more interesting than the article really is and in turn increase readership. As long as the article isn't posing as fact, what's the problem? They won't be the first people to have tricked you so they can earn some money and you won't be paying anything. Language can be creative and beautiful, and it should be enjoyed.

So...?

Which side wins in the end? Are we sticklers for thinking that language should be matter of fact? Or can news be creative? The best headlines grab your attention. If clicking on a link or picking up the newspaper is encouraged by an intriguing headline is it such a bad thing? They do earn money from doing it... and they won't be sharing that money with you despite having tricked you. At least you can take solace in the fact that they have encouraged people to read!