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Author Chi Luu in black and white

Chi Luu

Chi Luu is JSTOR Daily’s resident linguist. She is a computational linguist and NLP researcher who tinkers with tiny models and machines to uncover curious mysteries in human language. She has degrees in Theoretical Linguistics and Literature, with a morbid focus on dead and dying languages. She has worked on dictionaries, multi-language search engines, and question answering applications.

Two policemen interrogating somebody
Lingua Obscura

How Being Polite with Police Can Backfire

When it comes to interactions with the police, the law favors direct speech. But that's not always the way we're trained to speak to people in power.
A punk with a mohawk in a cottagecore painting
Lingua Obscura

The Punk Rock Linguistics of Cottagecore

So you want to borrow a concept from another culture but don’t know what to call it? Try a morpheme!
Demonstrators march near the White House in protest following a Kentucky grand jury decision in the Breonna Taylor case on September 23, 2020
Lingua Obscura

The Ethical Life of Euphemisms

Euphemisms can hide facts that need to be confronted. How do they work from a linguist's point of view?
Taylor Swift at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards
Lingua Obscura

The Linguistic Evolution of Taylor Swift

If Taylor Swift shifts her accent in her transition from country to pop, does she lose the personal authenticity important to country music?
Meme of woman laughing with the tagline, "Laughs with Sorrow in Spanish," just below her face
Lingua Obscura

How to Meme What You Say

The linguistic theories behind what we're trying to say when we adapt and share internet memes.
George Floyd's image is projected on the Robert E. Lee Monument as people gather around on June 18, 2020 in Richmond, Virginia.
Lingua Obscura

The Sorry State of Apologies

"Sorry" can be more than a mere word when it has real-world consequences.
Electric Fan
Lingua Obscura

The Linguistic Case for Sh*t Hitting the Fan

Idioms have a special power to draw people together in a way that plain speech doesn't.
Children playing ring around the rosie
Lingua Obscura

The Linguistics of Cooties (and Other Weird Things Kids Say)

The game of cooties lets children learn about the idea of contagion, but kid culture and wordplay aren't meant for adults.
Two face masks in front of some text about the COVID-19 virus
Lingua Obscura

When Language Goes Viral

How do innocuous words become insidious in the face of a public health emergency?
3 boys hanging out outside laughing
Lingua Obscura

Black English Matters

People who criticize African American Vernacular English don't see that it shares grammatical structures with more "prestigious" languages.
Young girls chant as activists rally for climate action at Sydney Town Hall on January 10, 2020 in Sydney, Australia.
Lingua Obscura

The Linguistic Anatomy of a Political Firestorm

The prime minister of Australia has a background in marketing, but with the bush fire crisis, his manipulation of language is only getting him so far.
An angry mob in front of a computer screen
Lingua Obscura

Cancel Culture Is Chaotic Good

Cancel culture may prove to be the most memorable linguistic trend of the past decade.
A man reading a newspaper with facebook reactions in a cloud around him
Lingua Obscura

The Incredibly True Story of Fake Headlines

Are you still reading? Editors frequently use this space to include important contextual information about a news story.
A collection of Native American utensils and weapons
Lingua Obscura

What We Lose When We Lose Indigenous Knowledge

By mistaking a culture's history for fantasy, or by disrespecting the wealth of Indigenous knowledge, we're keeping up a Columbian, colonial tradition.
A laptop with a skull wearing a crown on its screen
Lingua Obscura

The Life Changing Linguistics of… Nigerian Scam Emails

How do scammers use language to trick their victims?
Robin Williams In 'Dead Poets Society'
Lingua Obscura

How “Carpe Diem” Got Lost in Translation

"Carpe Diem" doesn't actually mean "seize the day." The fact that we understand it that way suggests we are more traditional than we like to admit.
A person holding a newspaper on fire
Lingua Obscura

How Language and Climate Connect

While we’re losing biological diversity, we’re also losing linguistic and cultural diversity at the same time. This is no coincidence.
A dad laughing at his own joke.
Lingua Obscura

The Dubious Art of the Dad Joke

Is it really only dads who can tell dad jokes? And is this corny humor universal? Our linguist takes a deep dive.
Fifteen redacted pages of the Mueller Report
Lingua Obscura

Are We Being Framed?

How the linguistic trick of framing shapes meaning--and can lead to deception.
The Copper Coast Geopark, County Waterford, Ireland.
Lingua Obscura

When Language Started a Political Revolution

Will Brexit fracture the UK? Ireland, for example, has its own cultural identity and language, which are perhaps more linked to Europe than to England.
Robert Redford, The Great Gatsby (1974)
Lingua Obscura

When Very Bad Words Are the Sh*t (Linguistically Speaking)

The fact that people can use “literally” about things that can’t possibly be factual may literally make your blood boil.
Hamlet. Poster for W. S. Hardy Company, 1894
Quick Question

When Did the Verb “To Be” Enter the English Language?

A Curious Reader asks: To be or naught to be?
A couple expressing affection
Lingua Obscura

The Language of Your Love Life

Pet names and baby talk between lovers can be cringe-worthy and even incriminating. So why do couples use such lovey-dovey language?
A woman writing a letter at a table
Lingua Obscura

The Ladylike Language of Letters

Letters reveal how language changes. They also offer a peek into the way people--especially women--have always constructed their private and public selves.
Mr. Knightley and Emma Woodhouse, from Jane Austen's Emma
Lingua Obscura

Jane Austen’s Subtly Subversive Linguistics

Why are Jane Austen books still so beloved? A linguist argues it has more to do with Austen's masterful use of language than with plot.

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