It's the 11th of the month! In this installment: blithering sap-heads; holiday euphoniums, artist epitaphs, and frozen words: buttondown.com/thingslearne...

The Gel Conference is back! It was the first big conference I ever spoke at and one of the best I've ever attended: gelconference.com Highly recommended! (I have a conflict or I would be there for sure.)

Yes, Swiss scientist Fritz Zwicky coined the term “dark matter” which is impressive, but he also coined the term “spherical bastard” to describe people who are bastards no matter which way you look at them, and I think that should be celebrated more.

New on the Wordnik blog: Five Words from ... Dress Codes, by Richard Thompson Ford: blog.wordnik.com/five-words-f...

It's the eleventh of the month: time for some more things I learned while looking up other things, including unwanted disciples, hating the number 17 for not being perfect, "women and children first", and the Medina standard: buttondown.com/thingslearne...

Reminder that the LingComm Grants close at the end of this month!

Happy linguistics-degree-word-assignment-day to all who celebrate: xkcd.com/2602/

New issue of Logodaedaly, Wordnik's newsletter for word game enthusiasts! Interviews with game creators, upcoming events, and a call for new contributors! mailchi.mp/wordnik/logo...

Absolutely this: "I’ve learned that when you coin a new term, the definition is not what you give it. It’s what people assume it means when they hear it." @simonwillison.net (simonwillison.net/2026/Mar/14/...)

You know if you want to desame-ify your writing you could always increase your vocabulary (said the dictionary editor for no reason 🤔) www.nature.com/articles/d41...

It's the 11th of the month! Time for another edition of Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things, including the elusive mountain walrus, a stirring anthem against Daylight Saving Time, and Email Debt Forgiveness Day! buttondown.com/thingslearne...

I think about this book every year because it’s a murder mystery about daylight saving time and shuffling an hour of light around every year makes me want to kill somebody

If I can’t unionize Claude then it’s not conscious, next question

If you were laid off from Block (or anywhere) and want to stay remote, @roost.tools is hiring for multiple SWE roles and levels. If you're the kind of person who's deeply satisfied by figuring out why a service has multiple databases and ripping some out, we might be for you! roost.tools/careers

“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.”

new post from Daniel on OSS docs! Always worth reading :)

New on the Wordnik blog: Five Words from ... The Notebook, by Roland Allen ( @zibaldoni.bsky.social): blog.wordnik.com/five-words-f...

Roses are red Violets are prime This is the sort Of linguist that I'm

new marketing campaign for print dictionaries, as totemic items to ward off dementia: "researchers found higher scores in lifetime enrichment were associated with a 38% lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease ... enrichment included ... dictionaries and library cards" www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Over on threads someone just use ai;dr and we all need to adopt that right quick

This month in Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things: the Odeillo Solar Furnace, broadcasting "Destroy Mount Rushmore", and searching for smells: buttondown.com/thingslearne...

🚨 Tell your Senators to vote NO on the GOP’s so-called “SAVE” Act”, which would: Require continuing voter purges w/ NO PENALTY for erroneous purges. Subject election officials to potential PRISON TIME & citizen suits for mistakenly registering a single voter—even if the voter is a citizen! 1/

18 million per week. That’s what we are collectively paying to hunt and kill people in Minnesota. I never wanna hear that we can’t afford to take care of our fellow Americans ever again. Healthcare. Education. Infrastructure. We can afford it all. www.kare11.com/article/news...

If Graham can hold up this bill for venal and treasonous reasons, then @amyklobuchar.com & @smith.senate.gov can block the whole spending package until Dems get the GOP to agree to clawback ICE detention funds.

Working on a project bringing linguistics to broader audiences? The 2026 LingComm Grants are $300 USD grants to help you with your project! Please apply and/or share with any up and coming lingcommers you know! Details: lingcomm.org/grants #linguistics #langsky #lingcomm

and now you can subscribe for vol 2! paperairplane.pub#subscribe

It’s the 11th of the month, time for a new edition of Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things! This month: hemerology, ubuesque, and the fattura della morte buttondown.com/thingslearne...

This implies that when given notice, these facilities will change their behavior and conditions for the better. So... Democrats should be requesting NON-STOP rolling daily visits to these facilities. Whatever the "tour" mode is should become permanent.

The 2025 Word of the Year is "slop," both as a noun for low-quality AI-generated content and as a combining form for anything of little value. Read the full press release. #WOTY2025 #ADS2026 #LSA2026 americandialect.org/2025-word-of...

So sad to learn of John Langdon's death. His words-as-art were always a delight.

Make it viral.

Knowing that you are stable enough handle an emergency - the luxury that shouldn't be a luxury. I hope that, in 2026, that will become reality for many more people in the world.

There's a very nice writeup of my talk at OSS Tokyo in LWN! lwn.net/SubscriberLi... (gift link) Thanks again to the wonderful @kissane.myatproto.social and @ddbeck.com who created the Docs Advisor and Docs Archetypes (github.com/google/opendocs)!

Now would be a great time for a 10 episode, 20 hour prestige series about the ten years between 1916 and 1926, covering the establishment of the 8-hr work day & 5-day work week, in the US. Each episode would be one year & the middle episode should be entirely devoted to the Battle of Blair Mountain.

it’s today! planning to start my re-read at dusk for the full effect

Merriam-Webster Accused Of Bias After ‘Dictionary’ Named Word Of The Year

Announcing the Em Dash Appreciation Society (for Humans). em-dash-appreciation.org

It's the 11th of the month, and the last month of the year, so this is the "words I recorded in 2025" installment! buttondown.com/thingslearne...

Samuel Johnson: “I do not much wish well to discoveries, for I am always afraid they will end in conquest and robbery.”

For your enjoyment: a zine combining letterpress blocks and measurement facts: zinebakery.com/assets/homem... via @dhnow.bsky.social

happy International Pie for Breakfast Day to all who celebrate

Me using the Cuisinart: hell yeah yes!!! Me washing the Cuisinart: well this sucks wtf

Any major dude with half a heart, surely will tell you, my friend Any minor world that breaks apart, falls together again When the demon is at your door In the morning, it won't be there no more Any major dude will tell you

there are 4 types of guys online. no exceptions.

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy

I put my dresses on one torso at a time just like every other person

The collective noun for leaf blowers is a SCOURGE

It's the 11th of the month! Sending out the Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things newsletter a little late this month, but this edition has a lot of art-related links (including a MERCURY FOUNTAIN), some weird forensic science, and a really good name. buttondown.com/thingslearne...

We've filed 'The Montana Plan' with the Montana SOS. This is your Constitutional Initiative to make Citizens United irrelevant by simply removing a corporation's power to spend in elections.

Sometimes you have an idea so dumb that you HAVE to do it (I didn’t get this up in time for Halloween though)