the correlation between language, thoughts and intelligence

[burningyen]

There's a nice little metaphor for the word-idea linkage in an article in today's NYTimes (subscription required):

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Retreating to a bar at the Imperial Palace, we talked about a different mystery he had been pondering: the role words play inside the brain. Learn a bit of wine speak — “ripe black plums with an accent of earthy leather” — and you are suddenly equipped with anchors to pin down your fleeting gustatory impressions. Words, he suggested, are “like sheepdogs herding ideas.”

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