Happy World Linguistics Day 🎉 Not Saussure how to celebrate? Episodes 12 and 13 of our podcast will give your plans some structure... 🎙️ hiphilangsci.net/2021/02/01/p... 🎙️ hiphilangsci.net/2021/03/01/p... #LinguisticBirthdays #LinguisticQuotes #Histlx #WorldLinguisticsDay

I see so many images on Bluesky that I'd like to repost but don't because they have no alt text. So many! I know we've been conditioned away from courtesy and kindness online, but a little effort with alt text goes a long way

I once asked a bookseller at a large indie store how many people would have to buy a book for it to get the attention of the store buyer and cause an additional order and they said: Three.

On the growth of Irish-language learning in Britain www.rte.ie/news/2025/11...

"A variant spelling, interestification, sounds as though it might be something that enhances your interest in a subject. It’s certainly a process being carefully watched by nutritionists." www.worldwidewords.org/tp-int4.html

"Interesterification" does not, regrettably, refer to something becoming more interesting but to a chemical reaction that requires breaking and reforming ester bonds

My closing thought is the same as it's been for years: companies want to make LLMs into liability avoidance devices. Someone at IBM figured this out in 1979 and put this in a presentation, and it's only become more accurate over time: blog.apaonline.org/2023/04/13/r...

Share a '90s movie that you think deserves more love

Seals singing in a sea cave #Orkney 🦭🎧

Satisfying to hear "Sapiens" skewered on @ifbookspod.bsky.social: www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/epis...

Earlier today, I was notified that someone was at my door. This is who it was:

So, without much ado, we've kind of lost the first major city to climate change. (Tehran, metropolitan area 15 million people.)

In about three years the entire university pivot to AI curricula and schools and programs is going to be so deeply embarrassing. We will all pretend it never happened and I will be standing there, looking at people with a mirror in my eyes. This is all so embarrassing.

If you see this, post your getaway vehicle

Great article. It is going to get ugly.

The word SNEEZE used to be FNESE, as in "He speketh in his nose And fneseth faste" (Canterbury Tales) FNESE faded out in the 15thC, superseded by NESE/NEEZE. Then an s- was added, maybe to strengthen it or to align with other nose-related sn- words Anyway I think we should bring FNESE back

type for books used to be set using little metal letters built into words in racks and then inked and pressed on to paper. If you had stock phrases you wanted to reuse a lot you could make a cast of them called a ‘stereotype’. The sound of them *clicking* into place, in French, is ‘cliché’

Added a new example of fucking ambiguity to my @stronglang.bsky.social post stronglang.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/f...

Solange Knowles’ Saint Heron has launched a free digital archival library of literature by Black and brown authors, poets, and artists. Readers can borrow rare and out-of-print books for up to 45 days

So he's all "such a nefarious neologism as the quotative 'like'", and Stan's there "actually it's not nefarious or even a neologism"

"I'm like" for "I said" is a distinguishing stylistic feature of Jay McInerney's 1988 novel Story of My Life - in fact the first line is "I'm like, I don't believe this shit". So presumably then it was well enough established for people to get it, but also distinctive enough to make it interesting.

"…caught out using such a nefarious neologism as the quotative 'like'" 1. It's not a neologism: it's a half-century old. 2. Calling a useful linguistic innovation "nefarious" says nothing about the word in question but quite a lot about the letter-writer. The only embarrassment is his ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i just remembered last night i dreamed about decimal letters in between the alphabet that could be used to describe the world in more detail

two women on the bus r having a convo on a translator app from arabic to ukrainian:') seems like they know each other from being on the same bus often

I understand the motivation for this apostrophe, but I do not share it. (from "A Crack in Everything" by Marcus Chown, a fine new book about black holes)

like all of this, as an explainer. but also the last paragraph

Reposting with alt text

This article on designing services to be digital by default focuses rightly on older people, but it has implications for us all www.thejournal.ie/readme/opini... #accessibility

A republic is not a monarchy. The difference between a presidential chair that embraces, & a throne that excludes.

"The AI industry’s most important product at this moment is not a chatbot or a video generator; it’s the story the AI industry is telling about itself" www.theringer.com/2025/11/04/t... #AI

It’s an impressive piece of work, “Presidential not regal” was the spec, and it is.

Ireland's presidential inauguration chair was made from native oak, symbolic of strength and endurance Here's some background from a beautiful book that I copy-edited in 2018 artisanhouse.ie/product/see-... #SpéirGhorm #SpéirGorm

We have had 14yrs without a toxic commentary on how our President dresses. I remember the slagging and commentary on Mary R. It would be great to think our media/society has evolved and that President Catherine Connolly will not be subject to that scrutiny.

FTA: @stancarey.bsky.social minds the bollocks stronglang.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/n...

Copyediting FAQ Q. Should the word “too” at the end of a sentence be preceded by a comma, or no? A. Whichever way you choose to go, the other way will immediately seem better.

Catherine Connolly, who I used to meet cycling around Galway, was inaugurated as the 10th president of Ireland today. She's already making the right people uncomfortable

Tom Gauld continues to document my life

Book Cover of the Day:

Advice welcome - I'm moving as much as I can off Spotify (for various reasons) so where's a good place to link to for the pod? Where do other people use that's not Spotify-related? And any good alternatives to what used to be Anchor (now Spotify) for uploading pods?

Michael Viney once wrote about moving from Dublin to Mayo with three bee hives in the trailer; Ethna drove them west at a steady 40 km/h to help the loose bees keep up 🐝

The blueprint for winning big on climate also came out last night. No more technocratic, policy wonk approaches. People showed they care about utility bills, free buses, affordable housing, etc. These are all climate issues. Talk about climate in terms people understand and experience.

Gen-Z speak I learnt today: "Day one-ers" - people you meet on arrival at university then spend the rest of the year trying to ditch. "Pencils" - casual workers or those on zero-hours contracts who can be called in at a moment's notice (IOW: pencilled in).

The trees and the light on the hill this morning

There’s an essay here on the role of good design/typography in successful campaigns!

Let's talk about linguistic arseholery. I have been thinking lately of examples of people being dickishly pedantic (or just wrong-headed) about what to call things. Three examples below, starting with the well-known case of Anthony Powell. 🧵

"Mamdani" as a crash course in English phonotactics with sociolinguistics on the side, all in 101 seconds) 🐦🐦

Do I know anyone (who knows anyone) who writes for a big press outlet on LBGTQIA human rights issues, especially worldwide? I'm trying to draw attention to the plight of a group of people in South Sudan who are facing grave danger and additional barriers to aid because of their identity.

Very good 3-part documentary about the climate emergency. "What are we prepared to give up to save the future?"

How am I only hearing of the Scunthorpe problem for the first time? As always, @stancarey.bsky.social is a delightful follow.

I recently realized that this month is the twentieth (!) blogiversary of Arrant Pedantry. My posting frequency has been pretty bad the last few years as I've dealt with health problems, pandemic burnout, and regular burnout, but I wanted to mark the occasion by sharing some of my favorite posts.