The superintendent they just kidnapped is a former Olympic athlete who runs footraces with the kids from his schools while wearing a maroon suit and a bowtie. This is quite simply about the people in power feeling threatened by Black excellence.

The kids get it.

The author is absolutely right. Fortunately there are opportunities for language learning post-school. King's College London Language Centre and City Lit and HE colleges for example in London

Anglophones abroad. [Caledonian Mercury, 27 September 1725.]

There is good in the world. Minerva, a black cat whose slogan was simply — and sinisterly — “CRIME,” was selected as mayor after an election process that captivated Somerville and other surrounding communities. www.boston.com/news/local-n...

There are just a couple of places left if you’d like to come and write ecopoetry with me on Wednesday 1/10/25 at The Swan, Stafford. See poster for booking details! All welcome and no experience necessary! 📖

The clouds cleared just for a moment…

I'll be celebrating the oddities of the English language on LMFM radio at 2p.m. where our words will be feisty, renegade, insidious, and monger. This time our mystery word is raffle-coppin. You can listen online at www.lmfm.ie and I'll share the podcast link later. #etymology

ICYMI...https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/student-visas-levies-loss-uk-economy-london-immigration-system-b1249689.html

It’s true …https://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/25494322.richmond-park-named-must-see-spot-uk/?ref=li

Words the Sea Gave Us - 370 nautical words & phrases, pirate slang, and more - baggywinkle, gollywobbler, tempest, flotsam. Ideal for beachcombers, sailors, and history lovers. #Kindle #FunFacts #etymology #sea #Kobo paperback wordfoolery.wordpress.com/my-books/ #booksky

The latest US and UK youth slang (and update from India too)...https://language-and-innovation.com/2025/09/25/september-updates/

Finnic and Baltic languages are the only ones to use the different word for Finns and Finland: suomi, soome, suomija, somija and so on. Nice to see the Livonian variant of the word.

They've lost the 9yos

My latest column for the Chronicle of Higher Ed is now live. It's an argument for including AI-critical voices in campus conversations and policymaking workgroups, and I'm proud to get this dissenting piece into the mainstream genAI/higher ed discourse. Please read and share if you're so inclined 🙂

What do mermaids and marines have in common? The parts 'mer-' and 'mar-' of these words have the same origin: the Proto-Indo-European word *mori, meaning "large body of water". It has descendants in many languages, including the Germanic, Romance, Slavic and Celtic languages. Click for more: 1/

"[Translators] are mediators between the spaces of languages and cultures; to do the work requires putting ego aside and accepting there is always something to learn from the other" #xl8 #literarytranslation 🌐 hellopeltablog.wordpress.com/2025/09/01/t...

The evolution of Taylor Swift's accent. archive.today/Nkydk

Braggadocio: 1590, coined by Spenser as the name of his personification of vainglory ("Faerie Queene," ii.3), from brag, with augmentative ending from Italian words then in vogue in English. www.etymonline.com/word/braggad... #etymology

Linguists! Another Write Time Friday with LSA Executive Committee member Kristen Syrett at 10a ET this Friday Sept 26! Come get some work done in a quietly supportive zoom room with other linguists! www.lsadc.org/ev_calendar_... #linguistics @lingsocam.bsky.social

It’s the Day of the Rapture according to far right US sources. Go carefully wherever you are…

Inspire your secondary learners to choose #languages as part of their learning by hearing from near-peer role models! Join one of our 2025-26 online sessions led by student Language Ambassadors from universities across Scotland! First event 25 Sept: https://loom.ly/D7AaB1M

From dark academia to medievalcore: fashion is embracing our need for escapism | Lauren Cochcrane

Please boost! #linguistics student here at Swarthmore is running a survey for English speakers (who don't know Mandarin / any other tone languages) about how we learn tones. Take a few minutes to help out with this student research! swarthmore.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

¿Tais per Barcelona esti vienres? Esti vienres 26 celébrase'l Día Européu de les Llingües y el Centru Asturianu de Barcelona va acoyer una conferencia del escritor, periodista y miembru de l'Academia de la Llingua Asturiana, Inaciu Galán sobre la hestoria de la llingua asturiana.⤵️

Autumn solstice 😕

It's the Autumn Equinox....https://language-and-innovation.com/2018/09/22/autumn-falls-today/

One for you @tonythorne007.bsky.social

✍️ Babel Young Writers' Competition! Write on your specialist linguistic topic and you could be published in Babel 🏆 Here's previous winner Claudia Bensi on Dutch and American English: babelzine.co.uk/wp-content/u... 📜 See pinned post for this year's guidelines

Yet again, machine learning — even gussied up via the transformer architecture — encodes and reinforces societal biases. This study reveals that LLM-based peer review relies heavily on author institution in its decisions. arxiv.org/abs/2509.15122

Stefan Fatsis on the current state of American lexicography www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Purely for interest: has any ever heard of or even met 'the brick': a traditional collection of condolence money given at a funeral in memoryof the dead person. Probbaly long vanished; this example was London 1912.

XKCD from 20 Sep 25. Is this a thing? I've never heard it, or heard anyone talk about it.

Vidéo très intéressante à propos de l'histoire de la bière, d'autant plus qu'on parle de l'histoire des mots! Le mot "bière" vient du néerlandais "bier" et apparaît en français au 15e siècle. Il réussit à faire sortir complètement de l'usage l'ancien mot "cervoise", emprunté au gaulois.

Ten days to submit a poem to the Fall issue of Forgotten Ground Regained.

DAZED | Apocalyptic scents: The perfumes bottling the smell of societal collapse

It's *Talk Like a Pirate Day* again. This from ten years ago...https://language-and-innovation.com/2016/09/19/talking-like-a-pirate/

The first of the three corpora of German-English bilingual children's early speech that we've been working on for the last few years is finally publicly available! 🥳 🎉 talkbank.org/childes/acce...

A Multiculturalism of the Undead daily.jstor.org/a-multicultu...

My exhibition ‘Battles of the Mind’, explores trauma & imagination through drawings I made in Ukraine in collaboration with Médecins Sans Frontières & The Guardian. Join me for the launch at King's College London Bush House this Thursday 18th September by registering here 🖤 tinyurl.com/dvhfnfc9

Other links: Watch: youtu.be/mVE4sgSi8oo Read: grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/ada... Listen: pod.link/173429229

🤩🤩

That feeling when: You walk pass a glass-walled room full of people making decisions - at that moment - about the future of your discipline in your place of work Yesterday's 'tfw'

This 👇 Hard to deliver if - like my University - you're planning to cut - 1 in 4 members of staff overall - 1 in 3 academics in my discipline (English Literature)

“There’s some raw work pulled at the font, Jeeves”

Useful abbreviations for the time-pressed on-line reader. #PhDchat #ECRchat #PhDForum #academicchatter @tomgauld

Look who came with

Banks tighten debt terms as squeezed UK universities refinance. Huge exporter, cog in local economies destroyed by govts. 40% of Unis in crisis. Real cuts in fees in England. Cuts in govt funding. Barriers for foreign students. £267bn student debt. archive.ph/a6fM9