this exists it is called thinking

Working at the BNF in Paris, and came across this fabulous cartoon from L'Élongé (May 1968). Will show students on my new Language Policy & Politics module - De Gaulle, in a hospital bed, is schooled on French grammar by a nurse. A satire on conservativism and verbal hygiene perhaps? 🤔

People are exhausted. Our high streets, public spaces, whole communities left unloved. Blaming migrants won’t fix this. Tackling inequality will. Tax the super-rich. Fund public services. #DrawTheLine www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Bingo. Westminster majoritarianism makes democratic backsliding not only easier to carry out but also harder to warn against, as I argued here. bsky.app/profile/leon...

Worrying in lots of ways, including the suggestion that the talking points of political bodies should set the agenda for funding bodies. Growth and prosperity are falsely equated - growth can also impoverish people. Prosperity is about redistribution - not a word British governments are keen on.

"These fires are neither isolated nor "natural" phenomena. They are expressions of a system in combustion, accelerated by climate change induced by our socioeconomic order and aggravated by land-use policies subordinated to accumulation, profit and growth." www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

Looks like we are now live-broadcasting Reform events on mass deportation plans on major TV channels including the BBC. We've just published a study showing that this type of coverage moves public opinion in an extreme direction & normalises those ideas further: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Labour won’t defend migration. Too scared of Reform, too terrified to lead. While they play dog whistle politics, inequality is the real problem. Not small boats. But private jets.

Excellent ideology critique from Teen Vogue (yep), on a gender essentialist and fascist-adjacent trend that I am, mercifully, too offline to recognise. (Though I watched some videos after reading and yikes 😬)

The employee asked the girl and her mother if they needed help shopping. That’s it. That’s all. The misinformation, the insinuations (because the facts are inconveniently benign) are EXACTLY what was done to lesbians in the 80s. This is the product of hate and fear, not reality.

Radical stickers seen in Seattle, Washington

The far right terrorising asylum seekers in hotels love to spread the lie they’re worried about the risk of sexual assault. But here’s the truth: Two in five men arrested for last summer’s riots had been reported for domestic abuse. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

The trans rights stitch-up: How the government plans to silence parliamentary debate on the most far-reaching restriction of minority rights in our lifetime open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

A new report by Human Rights Watch and partner nonprofits released today confirms that migrants at the downtown Miami ICE facility were indeed shackled with hands tied behind their backs, forced to kneel, and made to eat from styrofoam plates “like dogs.”

New research published in @languageeducation.bsky.social, available open access here (tinyurl.com/bdf262jp) and a short thread on the work below. Many thanks to the reviewers & editors for their feedback and to @leverhulme.ac.uk for funding support.

The EHRC is meant to protect everyone’s rights. But internal documents reveal a different story: repeated meetings with anti-trans lobbyists, legal bias, and secret coordination. We filed the FOI. Here’s what we found. tacc.org.uk/2025/07/01/f...

There's a lot to be said about identity, solidarity. But a simple place to start: the people who are willing to fight for their neighbors when their neighbors have different problems have a very, very good chance of having neighbors to fight with when you all share problems

Entirely on brand photo in the 90s diorama at the Computerspielemuseum Berlin, on the day Against the Game was published (🔗 👇)! Playing something linked to my upcoming project with Adrienne Mortimer and @openlibhums.bsky.social ... Any guesses!? 💥🚗|🩹🥺 #Dingbats 🐶 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The EHRC consultation on their draft code of practice closes Monday at midnight – if you want to fill it in, now’s the time! The consultation closes on Monday (30th June) at 11:59pm, so don’t leave it until 11:58 to fill it in - get it out the way now! www.scottishtrans.org/supreme-cour...

One of the problems of post-industrial capitalist societies is how to generate sufficient knowledge and expertise to produce profits without letting that knowledge overflow into critical thinking that could disrupt the system--the ruling class sees AI as a solution to that problem.

“Powerlessness I would say is the defining political emotion of our age” (25:43), while “conspiricism is a... response to this feeling… a rage and response to powerlessness’. (26:26-27:12) Spot on analysis I’d say @graceblakeley.substack.com

Amazing photos - and hard to imagine a better author photo than Angela Davis smoking a cigarette during her trial in 1972 🔥 www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

That's not what we should be hearing. There is virtually no low-quality research that gets discussed at funding panels, or gets anywhere near being funded. The problem is that not enough high-quality research is funded.

maybe doctors could save money by treating fewer patients | maybe firefighters could save money by choosing the fires they put out more judiciously | maybe the bbc should save money by limiting broadcasts to 4 hours per day. in fact why don’t we all do the most cost-effective thing & simply give up

"Within the mainstream discourse, the concept of a society that prioritises collective values over economic power is now such a marginalised idea that it seems almost absurd to many people. The result is that collectivist proposals for the economy are either patronised, dismissed, or critiqued."

Do you have 10 minutes to spare for trans rights? Our guide to responding to the EHRC’s consultation on the draft Code of Practice explains how to respond and gives ideas about what you can say for each question. More info: www.scottishtrans.org/emailfortran...

New research from MIT found that those who used ChatGPT can’t remember any of the content of their essays. Key takeaway: the product doesn’t suffer, but the process does. And when it comes to essays, the process *is* how they learn. arxiv.org/pdf/2506.088...

Look at what was taken in “sweeps” of homeless encampments. projects.propublica.org/impact-of-ho...

Writing about #TheLastofUs while reading fascist attacks on America's (quite mild) institutional Left and finding it a little too easy to argue that cordyceps might be preferable to capitalism 🤔👑

Do you want lower rates of "crime"? Do you want increased childhood development and well-being? Do you want lower rates of homelessness? Do you want to reduce overdose deaths? Do you want these things cheaper than ever? Then give people housing, food, schooling, medicine, and support, for free.

I gave a talk on witchcraft and feminism today at the Buckingham literature festival. I was asked who I thought were witches to today’s society. Easy question. Transgender women.

The Secretary of Homeland Security just said the feds are there to remove democratically elected officials in California and then had a Senator detained. Why is that not in every headline? It's what happened.

For anyone who doesn't know "Article 8" is the European Convention on Human Rights right to a private life This is the head of the EHRC saying that she does not believe that *anyone* has the right to privacy when it comes to being trans or cis Brazenly immoral, legally untrue

America has never been broke. It’s just violently anti-poor. Troops in LA cost $134M — the price of 44 million school lunches. But sure, let’s keep pretending the issue is lazy parents and not a government that eats kids for breakfast.

Super late to the party on this, but I don’t think it matters what kind of bullets that cop shot the Australian reporter with. Cops have no business shooting reporters in the first place.

Fantastic theme for next year's issue of Key Words - 'Foreclosure'! Read the CFP below 👇

We are hiring a dream team of doctoral and post-doctoral research fellows in applied sociolinguistics, education and related fields to work on "Linguistic Diversity and Social Participation across the Lifespan" @uni-hamburg.de www.languageonthemove.com/hiring-a-dre...

Today in “Is Los Angeles Burning?”: No.

So on Friday @languageinsociety.bsky.social‬ published my new article, Against the Game! It explores toponymic politics in one of the most successful videogame franchises of all time, asking how Civilization players engage with coloniality & placenames 🧵 #Sociolinguistics #PopCulture buff.ly/PiQVW50

🚨 BREAKING 🚨 A massive crowd is gathering in DC demanding that SEIU CA President David Huerta be freed. #FreeDavidEndRaids Find your event here: bit.ly/FreeDavidEnd... PASS IT ON!

Right now, Dems are hiding in their offices, scrolling their phones fearfully, wondering "how are voters going to feel about the National Guard being deployed?" The right, meanwhile, is vigorously *attempting to shape* how voters feel about it, filling every medium with coordinated propaganda.

I have been very excited about this! New OA article in @languageinsociety.bsky.social, examing the language ideological significance of Sid Meier's phenomenally popular Civilization series, with a focus on how players practice and conceptualise postcolonial toponymy. Thread to follow next week...! 🎉

I’m looking forward to joining Iain Dale on LBC tonight. I suspect we will be talking about scapegoating foreigners, Keir Starmer & incendiary language in politics. Tune in at 8pm if you can.

No more talk of "maxing out the credit card." We can - and must - spend to invest. The 1% must also pay their fair share. Backzack.com (Footage from @novaramedia.com live stream)

We are delighted to announce two winners of the 2025 Simon Dentith Memorial Prize, the Society’s postgraduate essay competition. First prize goes to Friederike Sachs. Second prize goes to Alexander Curtis. Read more about the winners here: raymondwilliams.co.uk/2025/05/01/e...

👇👇👇👇 (and that legal "law" is not the same as the incontrovertible and amoral "laws" pursued by the natural sciences, despite the perhaps unfortunate polysemy)

The Supreme Court sided with FWS. But it didn’t hear from a single trans person. This ruling sets a dangerous precedent and erases trans women from protections. It puts trans rights back 20 years. We won't stop fighting for trans rights 🏳️‍⚧️

Do you identify as Black or Afro-Descended and speak Spanish in the Miami Area? Check out this opportunity to earn $300 to participate in a study. All people who sign up will be screened prior to participation and sign-ups outside the Miami area will not be considered. tiny.utk.edu/miamiwalks2025

I am one of the authors whom Meta stole (sorry, ‘scraped’) from, by using their books to train Libgen. So I’m biased. But this from @mscaitlinmoran.bsky.social is👌