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George Lakoff: 2 ideas worth knowing

2 ideas from George Lakoff, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

• One Aboriginal language groups 'women, fire and dangerous things' into a single class

  Dyirbal, spoken in northeast Queensland, sorts every noun into one of four classes, and the class that covers women also covers fire, water, and dangerous animals. Linguist George …

  — George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things

• You don't just talk about arguments like wars — you think about them that way

  'He attacked my position', 'I demolished his argument', 'she won the debate' — English talks about arguing almost entirely in terms of combat. Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors We Liv…

  — George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By

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