Willful
"Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania took brain images of five women while they spoke in tongues and found that their frontal lobes — the thinking, willful part of the brain through which people control what they do — were relatively quiet, as were the language centers."
What does "willful" exactly mean in such a context?
(NYT.)
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There are many synonyms of "willful" in the https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/willful, but somehow I can't pinpoint the exact meaning of that in that sentence. In other words, in what way does "willful" lexically, i.e., according to the dictionary definition, modify the NP "part of the brain through which people control what they do"?
Top answer
Funny, but the OED shows only the spelling "wilful", while most others show that as the variant. I would have said it's "wilful". The writer is on shaky ground there.
- Funny, but the OED shows only the spelling "wilful", while most others show that as the variant.
- I would have said it's "wilful".
- The writer is on shaky ground there.
- You are right to sense a problem.
- "Voluntary" would have been better because it is a word that actually means what the writer thought "willful" does.
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Funny, but the OED shows only the spelling "wilful", while most others show that as the variant. I would have said it's "wilful".
The writer is on shaky ground there. You are right to sense a problem. "Voluntary" would have been better because it is a word that actually means what the writer thought "willful" does.
0There seems to be some sarcasm here. So-called "speaking in tongues" is looked at as hocus pocus by scientists, so here they're apparently saying: when people speak in tongues there's no thought or language skill involved.
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