Latest articles.
Hilarity, linguistically deconstructed
This week, both members of Mapped were in London. The reason, besides friendship, was to see Louis CK’s standup in a ridiculously large arena show.
I (Randall) am studying linguistics, for officialZ, and as a result, we (Randall & Elizabeth) are linguistic Rain Men.…
A dialectic on cute
by Elizabeth McGuane“Why is my soup talking to me like it's a person?” I heard a friend say this recently, to no one in particular, while glaring at the back of a tub of soup. This is what...
copywriting, persuasion, writing
When data visualisation goes wrong
by Randall Snare
I love a good graph. If someone can turn those unsexy numbers into an easy-on-the-eyes series of rectangles, then, well, hooray. But let's be honest about what data visualisation sometimes becomes: the crystal...cats, gay hurricanes, infographics
A linguistic investigation
by Randall SnareThe number one song in America right now is ‘We are never ever getting back together’ by the pouty, prolific songstress, Taylor Swift (here’s a video with ransom-note like lyrics only). It’s a catchy...
forensic linguistics, obvious logic obviously, Taylor Swift
How words should be
by Elizabeth McGuaneBack in the days when my job mostly involved hacking through sizable tracts of web content undergrowth (which it still does, sometimes), I believed in something: that content on the web should be short,...
new things are scary/awesome, semantics, writing
The sounds of cities
by Randall Snare
Much has been written about the sounds of cities (and we just wrote about it), but usually from sounds other than our voices.
Cities have soundmarks, like landmarks. In San Francisco, it’s the sound...
cities, Mapped T-shirts, travel