A post by Mark Liberman that begins with this quote:
Sindya N. Bhanoo, “Real Words or Gibberish? Just Ask a Baboon“, NYT 4/16/2012:
While baboons can’t read, they can tell the difference between real English words and nonsensical ones, a new study reports.
“They are using information about letters and the relation between letters to perform the task without any kind of linguistic training,” said Jonathan Grainger, a psychologist at the French Center for National Research and at Aix-Marseille University in France who was the study’s first author.
Mark finds a number of sad facts, some in the coverage of the story and the others in the story itself.
His analysis of the coverage and the story proper are quite delightful.
Enjoy.