Language Log » Bad Science Reporting Again: The Eskimos Are Back

How Many Words DO Eskimos Have For 'Snow'?
three igloos in the mountains ...
three igloos in the mountains ...

You just can't keep a bad idea down. And you just can't lift the level of bad science journalism up. David Robson of New Scientist, in a piece published in that pop science rag a couple of weeks ago and now also published in the Washington Post, plunders an academic paper by Igor Krupnik about the anthropologist Franz Boas, who lived with a Canadian Inuit band for a few months in the early 20th century and learned the language.

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