Do women want to look thinner than men want them to be?

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This is an archived post from September, 2005, posted here and now because I am away on vacation. As I go about my days, I get the impression that there is a lot of confusion out there about the treatment of opiate abuse and dependence. Wes Clark (not that Wes Clark, the other one) has written an…
The statistics describing America’s prescription drug abuse epidemic are startling, to say the least. Here are just a few statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: In 2009, prescription painkiller abuse was responsible for nearly half a million emergency department visits — a…
by Kim Krisberg This is the first in a series exploring the intersections between effectively caring for people living with chronic pain and the rise in unintentional poisoning deaths due to prescription painkillers. The series will explore the science and policy of balancing the need for treatment…
At Bioephemera, Jessica Palmer notes a disturbing double standard: [T]here's a huge double standard in the media, and in society in general, when it comes to drug abuse treatment. I spent two years as a AAAS Fellow at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and it was both depressing and inspiring:…

I am eagerly awaiting access to the original article on second languages. I've posted an admission of my bias that it can't be right, or the effect can't be strong, or at least, that we should ignore the study. My thinking on this is that one-language Americans going off as adults and learning a second language are not ideal subjects for study of language learning and acquisition. They are already broken.

I don't have this exact problem with second languages, but I do have this same problem with second and third languages - in other words, if I try to learn a new language other than English, I first have to struggle not to automatically bring up words in the last non-English language I studied, and then as I get more proficient in the new language, I start to lose the previous non-English language. I've come to the conclusion I'm only really capable of holding one other language in my mind at a time, which is sort of sad. Maybe if I actively tried to read in the second language while learning the third I could eventually get all three of them to stay in there!!

By Teresa Michelsen (not verified) on 22 Jan 2007 #permalink

I grew up with Japanese parents but we spoke only English at home. I was 13 when I learned Japanese. I studied it for 2 years and switched to speaking both Japanese & English at home. I then went on to learn Spanish in high school. I started getting confused with Japanese and Spanish words. After 5 years of Spanish, I gave up. I couldn't retain what I was learning.

I moved away from home and spoke less Japanese. Many years later I still sometimes think in Japanese but speak English all the time. It is quite strange to me that I would still think in Japanese without speaking it.

So far as I can tell, the language article is proposing an explanation for a well-established phenomenon, Greg's prejudice notwithstanding.