Manchester, from Bolton

Exciting news: I've got a 3-page article on the Grasmere Dialect Plays in the Oct 2025 issue of 'Cumbria Life' magazine! Really hoping this will bring them to a wider audience @drpennybradshaw.bsky.social @countrystride.bsky.social For more on the Plays, head over to @grasdialectplays.bsky.social

The start of a new academic year. Seems like a good time to remind students and teachers who are looking at spoken language and identity for the first time that this is available and very accessible! In all the usual places. Please leave a review if you can😁

Sometimes it depresses me how little impact decades of the study of sociolinguistic variation and change has had on other areas of the language sciences (I get the same feeling about gesture studies), but I didn't even realise that this idea was prevalent in some areas of my own field!

1/4 Another recent language favourite comes from the really quite wonderful Dr. Rob Drummond. The book is focused on, well, how we 'talk'. Do you have an accent? Does it make you sound educated, powerful, or perhaps a bit dim and poor.

“Westminster isn’t kind to people with accents”

So was that! 😊

That was good

That was good

The irony, of course, is that the “phonetic way to say umami” is [umami].

A lovely walk up Winter Hill this morning☀️ #Bolton

Loved this episode of Cautionary Tales. A re-evaluation of ‘world’s worst poet’ and performer William McGonagall! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...

Morning

After a frantic few weeks pulling the last bits together, this book manuscript has just been submitted to the publisher 😅

If you extend a deadline by 6 months, but then deliver 3 weeks before the 6 months is up, that’s still ahead of schedule, right?

We've just advertised a 12-month research fellowship at Northumbria (a corpus-based diachronic project on words for 'yes' and 'no' in European languages) Please share with anybody you know who might be interested work4.northumbria.ac.uk#en/sites/CX_... #linguistics #research #postdoc

Meaningful linguistic typos: Diphthing: an indeterminate diphthong.

This morning The Guardian has thrown its weight behind the campaign for oracy education. This is an important moment for the oracy movement. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

BBC commentators seeing how many different ways they can pronounce Salma Paralluelo in the course of one game #ENGSPA

Fascinating and concerning www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Just seen a guy wearing a t-shirt that says: “Some men are born targets, others are born weapons” Is it just me or…..? 😂 Maybe just a UK issue? 🤔

A perfect pun for those UK speakers who have [bu:k] for ‘book’ (it’s a hotel that is apparently themed around books and flowers)

Shiny Franz Kafka

Today I learned that ‘wig’ is short for ‘periwig’ 🧐

Today’s sockwear

My first journal article 'Publishing the North: Bias, Diversity and the North–South Divide in the UK Book Industry' out now in Publishing Research Quarterly. It's open access, anyone can read it, and I think if you work in the UK book industry you really should. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

“It should arrive by dinner time tomorrow.” I’ve lived in the north of England for over 25 years and I’m still not certain what time this is 🤷🏻‍♂️

A penguin joke that relies on two phonetic features: th-fronting and non-rhoticity!

I’m waiting to give a plenary, and the session before me is a group of primary school kids from Spennymoor talking brilliantly about accent and identity, and performing some of their own poetry! Talk about a tough act to follow 😬😬😂 I might sneak out now 🤫 #VoiceNE

Today I’m at the Voice North East Oracy Exhibition! I’ve seen worse venues! #VoiceNE

Love this from @clarefeeneyuk.bsky.social - getting her (school) class to think like a linguist! #VoiceNE

Every now and then you have to check that you haven’t been forgotten. Looking good, @waterstones.bsky.social Newcastle!

I’m no expert but I would’ve got a person to do it.

Well this is turning out to be a great day, as expected! #EnglishGrammarDay

Green bow tie? It’s got to be Community Band concert night 🎷🎷🎷

Still a few places left and just a couple of days to book.

Aldeh #ManchesterVoices www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

We were so far ahead of the curve in last week's New Directions course that we talked about this article before it was even published. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06...

Next week! events.bl.uk/events/engli... #EnglishGrammarDay #Grammar #EnglishLanguage @bethmalory.bsky.social @hwimbushenglish.bsky.social @debsadelight.bsky.social @robdrummond.bsky.social @billylinguist.bsky.social @artshumsucl.bsky.social @britishlibrary.bsky.social @engfac.bsky.social

Just finishing off my workshop for the upcoming @voice21oracy.bsky.social Oracy Exhibition in Newcastle. I'm doing a session on teaching students about language. There's a fantastic line-up, including my colleague on how to use talk in Maths, & @robdrummond.bsky.social doing a keynote. #VoiceNE

This was such an interesting conversation! @robdrummond.bsky.social. If you're interested in what makes up an accent, how favored accents get that way, why people adopt fake accents, and more — check it out!

Absolute pleasure to speak to the one and only @grammargirl.bsky.social recently about accents and identity, and my book - You’re All Talk! Watch it here or download the podcast youtu.be/puEjb98nDpI?...

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06... ‘They absolutely play on their accent’: How posh shoplifters try to get off the hook

I need Ctrl+F for my house

Garden cat bundle

There are some lucky fathers out there, whether they realise it or not 😂

And what a great place! #Toulouse

Fascinating round table about citizen science in humanities @saes-2025.bsky.social Thanks Emma Bell, Émeline Jouve and Rob Drummond. @cas-ut2j.bsky.social @robdrummond.bsky.social