Tagmemics: Interesting Thing of the Day. When I was studying linguistics in graduate school, the question people asked me most often was, “So how many languages can you speak?”
I’d roll my eyes and say, “One, almost.” I’d then try to explain that I usually get by pretty well in English, that I can order food in a French restaurant without embarrassing myself, and that I’ve picked up a smattering of phrases in half a dozen other languages—but that’s pretty much it (unless you want to count computer languages or ancient Greek and Hebrew, of which I know just enough to mistranslate an inscription here and there). Linguists, I would say, are not necessarily polyglots; the study of linguistics is not about learning a bunch of languages but rather about understanding the nature of language generally: how the brain creates and interprets it, how children learn it, how it functions in society, how to model it computationally, that sort of thing. Snowclone. Snowclone is a neologism for a type of cliché and phrasal template originally defined as "a multi-use, customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely open array of different variants".[1] An example of a snowclone is the phrase "grey is the new black," which gave rise to the template "X is the new Y.
" X and Y may be replaced with different words or phrases—for example, "comedy is the new rock 'n' roll. "[2] Using "there are always more fish in the sea" as a template, one could say, "there are always more sharks in the cesspool. " A unified simulation scenario for language development, evolution, and historical change. Simulating the Evolution of Language.