The Three Way Distinction in Verbs

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Abode is thought of as a noun, a place. Abod has not been in common usage for a few centuries. That's one of those a th that dropped out like gid. The past tens of chide fromce yesachitten or a holp as are still used by some dialects. Shrank, shrunk a, where the shrank and the stank are giving way to the parcible form. No shrank on stank, no shrank and stankand admittedly, ou have been hard to have a movie called honey,. i shrank the kids stead of honey, i shrunk the kids.

Steven Pinker has spent an entire academic career thinking deeply about language, cognition, and human nature. Driving it all, he says, is an Enlightenment belief that the world is intelligible, science can progress, and through rational inquiry we can better understand ourselves.

He recently joined Tyler for a conversation not only on the power of reason, but also the economics of irrational verbs, whether violence will continue to decline, behavioral economics, existential threats, the merits of aerobic exercise, photography, group selection, Fermi’s paradox, Noam Chomsky, universal grammar, free will, the Ed Sullivan show, and why people underrate the passive (or so it is thought).

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Follow Steven on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.