My cousin Theresa was in Tower One when the first plane hit, so any discussion of 9/11 brings with it deep emotions that often make cool reasoning difficult or impossible. Truth be told, I have mixed ...

The denotative and connotative meanings of words have experienced a distinct semantic shift in this age of our too much exposure to digital screen. Great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy says: “The more ...

Your story on how the brain stores and organises words gave a fascinating glimpse into the neurological underpinning of category formation (5 January, p 10). It reminded me of the distinction, ...

This distinction is often called that of connotation and denotation. A similar problem exists with words that seem to have obvious definitions across many different tongues too. One of the most ...

As a young conservatory student in 1993, I was talking with a classmate. He told me that his teacher, a prominent trumpet player in the New York Philharmonic, would begin each weekly lesson by having ...