Herd - the hidden truth about who we are

I copy, you copy, he/she/it copies

Source: flickr

Nice piece today in the Standard (prompted by the British Council "The English Effect" exhibition) elaborates on one of the questions we explored last summer in the run up to my School of Life Sermon: how English thrives through copying words from other tongues

Normally most of us would imagine there's some unique quality (its flexible grammar, maybe) that enables something to spread but maybe in this case is more it's ability to copy copy copy that works.

 

Copying & Originality (School of Life Sermon)

 

Amongst the many fun things that I've done this year, this vido of the Sermon I gave at the School of Life in September is one of my faves.

Thanks to the lovely folk at The School of Life for the opportunity, to the audience who turned up on the day and to the folk whose ideas and insights are shamelessly stolen and re-purposed in pursuit of this counterintuitive truth about the importance of copying in our lives and in our work.