Because it'll probably get cut, I wanted to post this footnote here for posterity

Wait until you hear that LLMs can only train on digitized/datafied info. Most of the FACTS scholars use are in archives/libraries. Less than 1% of archival colletions worldwide have been digitized. Also: lots of facts are not even in archives, but in the attics.

@joshuaraclaw.com leah asked me if schnoz and schnauzer are etymologically related and i bet you'd know

Having blue hair and pronouns is actually incredibly cool, that's why the most emotionally constipated people in the world get so mad about it

We have 526 scientists signed up for spring semester. We try to get that to about 1000 scientists before unleashing the teachers on the database. Wanna connect a class of kids with science this spring? Sign up!

"not all doors will open here, look for uniformed personnel that you may detrain" really good syntax

Depending on how you count, this announcement has been two plus or 25 years in the making.

My books is called Millennials Talking Media: Creating Intertextual Identities in Everyday Conversation. It's about how and why people quote TV shows, movies, video games, songs, memes, books, etc. in their everyday conversations for various interactional functions www.amazon.com/Millennials-...

unsolicited advice: 1. post about your book 2. put the TITLE of the book in the post 3. put a LINK TO BUY THE BOOK in the post 4. consider a cute graphic or just put the cover of your book (with alt text!) in the post 5. post about it as if this is the first time someone's learning about it/you

"Ask Me About the general concept of Pronouns" If you missed Lingthusiasm guest @kirbyconrod.bsky.social's pronouns t-shirt when it was on the Gender Reveal podcast merch store for a limited time, we've now brought it to ours! Proceeds help support the Kirby Conrod LGBTQ+ LingComm Grant

On a personal note, this page is something I've been working on and wrangling for months (along with a team of folks at Unbreaking). It's not a fun read, but I think it does a good job of explaining the lay of the land and what is happening.

Just a reminder for anyone else who's involved in communicating linguistics to broader audiences, there's a low-traffic but high signal-to-noise ratio lingcomm mailing list here: groups.google.com/g/lingcomm

The oddest thing about this is that if AI translation is really good enough, it would make far more sense not to produce translations at all. Just give me the tools to read in other languages on my own time. We would also see a gold rush for copyright on minority language literatures

It's day 19 of the invertebrate macro photo #ArtAdventCalendar. Here, have a tiger beetle 😘

Is there a way to search any of your favorite {social media/microblogging} {platforms/websites} for text with specific formatting? e.g., if I wanted to find a specific word on Tumblr but only in boldface, or to search some Discord server and only find text in italics... is there a way to do that?

📣 I'm the new book review editor for Oceanic Linguistics! Are you the author/editor of a book on Austronesian linguistics that you want us to review? Tell me!

Now available! THE CRIP LINGUISTICS READER is a wide-ranging and groundbreaking collection that challenges normative ideas about what is considered “good language.” Visit our website for more information on this latest release from GU Press! gupress.gallaudet.edu/Books/T/The-...

i do like wearing my Let's Go Birds Transsexual shirt around philly, i always get sooo many compliments. philly loves trans people

SHUT!!!!!!!!! - dashare.zone ADMIN

i don't think that bsky dot app is generally a useful or appropriate container for my feelings about politics because the rage and grief are too great and too paralyzing and i don't really like doing either of those feelings in public

i sometimes get the urge to drop everything and do a ton of like.... dialectological/lexical semantics surveys. what do cis people think an egg is? and so forth

out now! the Crip Linguistics Reader has some really important stuff in it, and I hope every linguist will engage and find something to take away from this volume

i will probably never make a social media account for my lab but i do enjoy when yall do so and follow me from your lab accounts because then i get to see your good acronyms

There is time until 30 January to send your nomination! see info here:

I consider this one of my core texts for figuring out the MAGA movement. It looks like these forums are now moving to TikTok.

20 years later, a follow up on Kiesling's "Dude" (2004)! I just treated myself to a little read www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edi...

What’s that? You’re stuck for gift ideas for a friend or relative who: a) is intrigued by accents; b) thinks some ways of speaking are better than others; d) thinks Susie Dent, David Crystal, Ian McMillan, Chris Mason, and Simon Mayo know a good book when they see it?!

god it's gonna feel good when we primary fetterman. fuck that guy

did not manage to convince forgy to order dinner for me but he has given me a nice foot rub (ankle biscuits) to make up for it

Grading and googling hallucinated citations, as one does nowadays, and now that LLMs have been around for a while, I've discovered new horrors: hallucinated journals are now appearing in Google Scholar with dozens of citations bc so many people are citing these fake things

The 28th Workshop on American Indigenous Languages is scheduled for May 2-3, 2026, here at UCSB: www.wailconference.org, with keynote speaker Dr. Telma Can Pixabaj (UNAM, CIMSUR) Call for Papers : linguistlist.org/issues/36/3396

swarthmore looks like a christmas card. it boggles my brain how cartoonishly cute it can be

uilleann pipes

did you know: the American Dialect Society is the oldest "word of the year" event in the States, and the words are chosen by several hundred linguists who get raucous in a big meeting room in January. you can submit nominations for us to consider! great activity for classrooms!

unironically: i think this is really unfair to people dealing with psychosis. if you mean "nonsensically evil" i think you should say that instead.

its so weird when the trains come inside with snow on them, i expect them to shake it off like big dogs

We've given billionaires way more than long enough to role play "effective altruism" or whatever, it's time for a tax structure that can actually pay for functioning social programs.

February

discriminatory policy and attitude is surely one piece of how trans people fall out of academia, but I have seen it work out a bit differently. for what it's worth I transitioned in grad school more than a decade ago, and taught in another field for the last few years.

made a kiki and bouba charm for my bag 💁🏼‍♀️💥🫟

no more recommending audiobooks as an alternative to reading. you gotta come to my apartment and read it to me while i put my head on your lap

There isn't a single problem "solved" by edtech that couldn't be fixed with smaller classes led by well-paid teachers given real academic freedom

sensory recovery day

Last night I got to present how I include nonbinary language in my Spanish classes to my state teachers’ union’s pride group. Felt really good to be in community with some truly amazing educators. Feeling extra thankful for my union today! 🏳️‍🌈

Pragmatics & Society: we get at least one paper per week with made up references now. Checking them takes time. Not something I used to do as an editor before. Stupid people armed with AI make life so much harder for everyone

BEING NOTICABLY TRANS ISN'T "UNPROFESSIONAL"

heard horses outside and got excited but it was cops :(

"The new monolingual Irish dictionary changes this paradigm. Instead of asking 'What's the English for X?', speakers will now be empowered to ask 'What does X mean?' in their own language.”

chilly willy out

pronouns are a really important barometer for how cared for and supported trans people are