oh no I just over-simplified prescriptive rules and tense/aspect to the point where I basically said 'anything you say is right' which I suppose I am fine as a position with but I know the listeners of bbc bristol will have just heard me say 'don't worry there are no rules!' #linguistics

This looks really good! #linguistics

Every year I'm surprised by the fact there is one more day of March than I'm expecting there to be. Makes up a bit for having one less hour of Sunday than usual. I also learnt recently that these days are called the 'borrowing days'.

Another day out and proud on the picket lines today at Northumbria University. Staff are fighting to defend the Teachers’ Pension Scheme and stop management’s attempt to force them out through pay freezes. This is about dignity, security and refusing to let pensions be stripped away.

Someone wrote "Most people get whey more protein than is needed" and yes it could have been a pun (it was reddit) but I think was actually a genuine priming error #linguistics

Verb ellipsis klaxon: [characters discuss marriage] 'Ever been?' 'Married? No.' #linguistics

Something students struggle with is constructing ungrammatical examples. Is there a handy chapter on this in a handbook or something? #linguistics

During lockdown I went to tons of online talks and I miss it. What are some good #linguistics talk series mailing lists I can get onto?

My life is literacy-heavy (read a lot as a kid, job involves lots of reading, am v online) so it's rare I find a word that I know the pronunciation and meaning of but not the spelling (rather than vice versa). Today I learnt how 'salchow', a word I've known since I was a child, is spelt #linguistics

I don't know who to tag to thank but I have ALREADY used stuff from the SOTL session at #LSA2026 in my teaching, not even 24 hours after learning it (I looked again at the data in my slides, and talked to students about where it came from and how it was cited). #linguistics

Years ago, 957 people from Twitter contributed to my research on 'because X' and I promised I'd share the results with them. I can't, because twitter, but please share it with people here anyway: www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi... Non-paywalled pre-print: kar.kent.ac.uk/105654/ #linguistics

So can someone help me troubleshoot virtual access to #LSA2026? I'm getting a 'host has a meeting in progress' message and don't know what to do about that.

sigh. why do I never remember to tag things. #linguistics

Good news, fans of the @lagbling.bsky.social Activism in Progress series: it's back! First speaker of 2026 is @ramonagonczol.bsky.social talking about heritage language projects with secondary schools. 4pm (GMT), Wed 14 Jan. Register here: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/d87fb0...

The current drama in the Archers is over whether you can say “a jug of cocktail”. Ambridge is divided. I find it anomalous, I think, but it ought to be easy to get this sense (compare “a jug of pork pie”: less likely, but definitely grindable). #linguistics

SynTeach is going to #LSA2026! We're doing focus groups while we're there so if you're interested, fill in the form and tick the LSA box. We're looking for teachers and students, people who loved syntax and people who hated it... anyone with syntax Thoughts! #linguistics forms.gle/PiBYpVPr1yg2...

Any other linguists watching this Doctor Who spin off? Definitely room for a linguist in the United Nations of the Land. #linguistics

App idea for someone to make pls: duolingo but for people who a) only want to learn enough to go on holiday in a month's time and will not continue after, & b) are linguists so want it packed with grammar info in order to extrapolate e.g., 'she would like' from 'I would like'. Thanks. #linguistics

My 3mm needles are MISSING. Where can they be?? I don’t lend my good ones and I’m faiiiiirly sure I haven’t got a stray project somewhere (or if so I can’t find it).

Very much enjoyed using the construction just now “… which I wonder if means…” #linguistics

I’m in this!! #linguistics

If you're in Kent: this is tomorrow! It's free, open to all, and will be really interesting. Lots of stories from the editor of the House of Lords Hansard. You need to book your free ticket at the link. @babelzine.bsky.social #linguistics www.kent.ac.uk/whats-on/bab...

SynTeach is a project looking at how syntax is taught in higher ed. Our next stage is FOCUS GROUPS—whether you loved or hated syntax, we'd love to talk to you! Sign up to be contacted as we're recruiting now: forms.gle/PiBYpVPr1yg2... #linguistics

We tried the new Live Translation feature that Apple has heavily marketed. It turns out to be optimized for Spanish as spoken in Spain (pop. 49 million) as opposed to Latin America or the Caribbean (663 million), which makes it kind of a disaster to use in the U.S. And that's just one problem. Alas.

@gretchenmcc.bsky.social @superlinguo.bsky.social In your Labov and the bunny episode you asked 'is this example going to start showing up in people's lecture slides?'. Can confirm, yes it is.

We're hosting this event at @unikent.bsky.social at the end of the month! So excited to hear all the goss about transcribing the House of Lords bickering! It's free and there is wine, so I'm in #linguistics #language

The 'short proposal' option here would be a great conference poster for someone doing linguistic fieldwork on an under-described language. Focussed conferences like this are really fun too. It's in Bielefeld, which does exist, I know people who've been there wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/jhartmann25/...

My train announcer has such a lot of /ʃ/ in his /str/ that he pronounced Strood almost as Shrood #linguistics

WaPo opinion piece claims that 'delve' occurs more in LLMs because AI companies hire a lot of people in Nigeria and Kenya More on the linguistic frequency of 'delve', by the great @kolatubosun.bsky.social, a favorite post at @flaminghydra.com flaminghydra.com/delving-into...

✍️ Education Education, education… and bums on seats A personal memoir of the Blair-era widening participation policy for higher education, that promised opportunity, but left a complex legacy By Dr Pam Jarvis @drpam.bsky.social

idk if this is a weird offer, but I’m really, really good at reading out linguistic experiment stimuli items, at an even pace, with no errors, with the prosody of your choice, in a very standard southern British English accent. If this would be useful to you let me know. #linguistics

🔔 LAST DAYS TO REGISTER 🔔 Don’t miss our @lagbling.bsky.social summer school for 2025 including a range of academic & developmental talks below @linguistlaura.bsky.social 👇🏽 Reserve your spot today!* *The full conference package does not include the summer school. Please register for this separately

Yessssss come and learn everything I know about doing presentations! I’m funny and I will probably wear a shirt with animals on it.

OK so what are folks doing now Overleaf is enshittifying itself beyond usability? Going back to desktop and dropbox files, like it's 2018?

I am but a total basic beginner with R, so my # notes to myself are just a stream of consciousness, like # oh whoops forgot to add the fillers, fixed that now, let's try again

@mixedlinguist.bsky.social amazing-ass spot on Decoder Ring!

LSA Presidential Research Forum Join us as scholars rethink terms like “native speaker” and “bilingual”— and work toward empirically driven, contextually grounded characterizations of language use. Register to attend - www.lsadc.org/ev_calendar_... #LSA #Linguistics #Sociolinguistics

It was #flants day today. I did have to go inside for a bit but now they’ve all shed their wings and I assume found new homes 🐜

If you had 4 hours per week for 8 weeks to teach second years 'morphology and syntax', what specific bit of this topic would you focus on? They know basic phrase structure and that's about it, but they're a good enthusiastic group. #linguistics

I got an email from the 'committee for academic freedom' asking me to sign a petition to say that I shouldn't have to voice beliefs I disagree with. I *love* a dogwhistle (academically speaking...) so I spent my coffee time reading their website.

My patreon is at 722 paid subs right now. My goal is to hit 800 by the end of Pride month. Can you help me out with a quote tweet/vouch?

This is what happens. The uni rolls back a tiny bit in cuts, says ‘good news, languages will not be cut!’ and everyone is relieved but in fact lots of people still lose their careers & the subject is reduced to the point it’s barely functional any more. Don’t ask me how I’m painfully aware of this.

lol have you guys seen this? Spoiler: I don’t think we will be ‘speaking whaleish’ any time soon. #linguistics www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j... We’re close to translating animal languages – what happens then? | Animals | The Guardian

Scots have 100 words for oatmeal. Apparently. Big fan of this interesting use of 'proof'.

Universities have been put in a situation *by the government* where they need to overcharge overseas students in order to balance the books, and then they're penalising for doing so? Unless unis are suitably funded, it makes no sense. Really, there is a better (state funded) way.

The 'safelinks' my university uses to keep me protected have pretty much destroyed the readability of a lot of my emails. I know there's no solution. I know we have bigger problems. I'm just sharing my sadness.

Activism in Progress event tomorrow (7 May, 2pm UK time) with Dr Alia Amir (SOAS): Language policing in multilingual educational contexts. Register here: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/12dad1... #linguistics #language #multilingualism @lagbling.bsky.social @lagbpsc.bsky.social

What's everyone's favourite textbook for language acquisition (undergrad), and why? (Modern, inclusive outlook please!) #linguistics

SynTeach is a project looking at how syntax is taught in higher ed. Our next stage is FOCUS GROUPS—whether you loved or hated syntax, we'd love to talk to you! Sign up to be contacted once we start recruiting: forms.gle/PiBYpVPr1yg2... #linguistics

Thanks everyone who did this yesterday, it was sufficient numbers for me to see it was worth popping an abstract in based on this data! (Survey remains open.)