The verb "table" having opposite meanings in #Canadian and #American #English is just another example why speaking the same #language doesn't mean we speak the same #linguistics #antonyms #dialect #meaning

the layers of chronically online context playing out here are fascinating - now we have a UAlberta prof put on leave for a bluesky post referencing a @dril.bsky.social tweet nationalpost.com/news/canada/...

My mom sometimes texts me book recommendations, and it’s so sweet of her to think I have time to read for fun 🥲

Anyone else remember this? Turns out it was all of 5 years ago. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Lette... (aka “the Harper’s letter”)

The Onion headlines are writing themselves again

Michael “Cool” Powell also posting lots on twitter, remarkably silent on this.

I ventured over to twitter to see what Conor Friedersdorf has to say about this. In the last day he’s had time to post about Burger King and a 1907 car race, but has remained mysteriously silent on his favorite topic, suppression of academic freedom of speech.

it has been 4 years and these guys simply cannot stop acting like the LSA letter was the same thing as a McCarthy era black list or a maoist denunciation rally or some shit

New Zealand marked safe

There are tons of graphic novels, academic papers, film and TV scripts, & prose novels/nonfiction on the LibGen list Anthropic used. As settlement approaches, make it easy for the class action lawyers to contact you! Here’s how Part 1: is your work in Libgen? www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

I am pleased to report I successfully flew into and back out of the coal mine

I’m descended from those who were fortunate enough to escape the pogroms and come to America in the early 1900s. My Bubbe (z’’l) would be roiling, roiling, roiling today.

Can’t wait to introduce bird-based storage into my backup system

One of the first CDs I bought as a kid (and anyone who remembers how expensive they were, knows that was no easy decision) - and now we can all enjoy his work for free in the public domain. That CD was later possibly the only reason I passed 10th grade chemistry…

Tom Lehrer outlived Kissinger, and I think that is evidence that there are at least some good forces in the universe. “I do have a cause, though. It is obscenity. I’m for it.” -from the intro to “Smut”

and "weekend" is banned by the Office québécois de la langue française, which clearly means use of the term in French is woke virtue signalling that you're pro-bilingualism 🤷‍♀️

The internet: “Latinx is made up by English speakers, no one actually says that” Meanwhile, all over Buenos Aires:

Sending out a bat signal for linguists: I’m trying to get my high school Linguistics and Media Studies class approved as an ENG101 course for early college / dual enrollment. The English dept at this community college keeps sending up roadblocks because there’s “too much linguistics,” (1/3) 🐦🐦

A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope

I've been living in Canada for almost 6 years now and as far as I can tell this is how Canadian geography works

Me: “oh, they called Nunavut!” @kennybaclawski.bsky.social: “I’m sure they called some of it” …can you believe I just live with this

Trump becomes the first American president to lose a Canadian election

My riding!

My DEL-DLI award #linguistics has now been terminated as part of the DOGEing of NEH. I'm a little surprised by this because the funding is part NSF 🧪, but the award was administered by NEH. No award- or program-specific info in the letter. They are not even trying to pretend it's legal.

It's also the day for my favorite meme! If this aging Klingon warrior can get it right, so can anyone.

I’m pretty sure Elon Musk has actually become exactly who conservatives thought George Soros was.

You just know Grace Hopper is absolutely cackling from the great beyond at the thought of Elon Musk's DOGE boys trying to re-write the SSA COBOL codebase

This isn't even out of context, the man himself literally said this after watching an AI-generated element in the Year of our Lord 2017.

just FYI, in case anyone happens to be developing a show about humanities academics in a bog-standard public university my consultation rate is really cheap

Please tell me I’m not the only academic whose suspension of disbelief stops right at the depiction of any professor’s office in tv/film Severance was the most recent offender, but I also remember Arrival being especially hilarious

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I’m an American citizen living/working in Canada, scheduled to present a paper on religion metaphors in climate change communication/denialism at a conference in the US this summer. Kind of feel like I’m the canary willingly flying into the coal mine here

“Information wants to be free” …for humans, not planet-destroying billion-dollar plagiarism death stars

I just remembered how last term in my language myths class I offhandedly mentioned that the USA has no official language, which was a surprise to the students as they all assumed it did (just like how Canada has two). I guess I’m going to have to rethink how to approach that lecture next year…

There is no conceivable reason why anyone should pick up a book by John "In combating DEI, Donald Trump is doing the right thing" McWhorter, who for years has used his platform as a public academic to launder right-wing ideas that harm minoritized communities, that talks about pronouns in English

(nervous laughter) this is fine

Yesterday, after another terrible night of insomnia I had a little bit of a mental breakdown and spent most of the day wallowing and failing to get work done. Eventually in the afternoon I realized I wasn't going to accomplish anything that required brainpower...

Spending my morning googling “can you report someone to the bc human rights tribunal for being a lil fash dipshit” (I mean this guy was the source of the “Haitians eating pets” nonsense! C’mon!!)

From my recent chapter: “For many in the United States, the study of foreign languages is seen as elitist (Reagan & Osborn, 2002) or is often hampered by monolingual & monocultural ideologies that see difference as an affront to power (1/x) #langchat #edusky

UBC alum who now works at Trinity Western University, where his dad is the President. These lil fash dipshits that are supposedly the pinnacle of humanity can’t even get a job without daddy’s help.

I made an offhand Monty Python reference in class (“Bring me a shrubbery!” as an example sentence) and one student smiled in acknowledgment and that just made my day

Reactions I'm seeing: - oh, that sounds quite sensible, and - wasn't it already? No, and no. Now this can be used to punish speakers of other languages. No need to publish official documents in other languages. A rationale to cut back on translation services. Criterion for immigration. Just awful.

New open access paper on forms of embodied interaction and stance in internet memes and online discourse 🥳 #linguistics (1/3) www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

I'd really like to stop shopping on Amazon, but I find myself using it because I simply can't find stuff in stores! We have been searching *everywhere* for a decent memory foam bath mat that will fit in our small apartment bathroom. Everything is either huge or no better than a kitchen towel.

It's weird how everyone in the world knows a Nazi salute when we see it, with the notable exception of journalists and their editors.

As usual my cats are terrible earthquake alert systems. One startled at the same time I did and the other slept through it. Aren’t they supposed to react faster than we are to this sort of thing?

Just felt my first #earthquake in Vancouver! Pretty comparable experience to prior ones back in California. 5.1 outside of Sechelt - we just got back from a trip there a few days ago, too.

Best Jersey ever. #Canpoli #Canada #Hockey