Excited to reveal cover of forthcoming book, 6th edition of "Linguistics of American Sign Language" (LASL6), w/ @gallaudetpress.bsky.social Cover design by @michelvrana.com, original art "When Grammar Mood" by @christine.lol Preorder coming soon! @ryanlepic.bsky.social @jaceyhill.bsky.social

New Cambridge Element, ASL Signbank by Julie A. Hochgesang, out now! Read for free for the next 2 weeks at https://cup.org/3SBnjUN

In academia, we rarely appreciate the fact that we have all survived and escaped an education system built for uniformity and mediocrity, and that it is an incredible freedom to work at a public university. The question is what we do with this freedom. Uncritical "AI" adoption renounces it.

Time to smash this motherfucker up

Today I was awarded tenure at Gallaudet! This summer marks 10 years since finishing my PhD, and this fall I will be on sabbatical, trying to write a lot and to redesign my undergrad syntax class. I’m so grateful to keep doing what I love. Pic is me at the recent #ICCG14 at Princeton #linguistics

Wake up y’all new structure ambiguity exercise just dropped. #linguistics

At #ICCG14 in Princeton (huge thanks to @adelegoldberg.bsky.social & team for a brilliant conference!) we announced our plans for the International #ConstructionGrammar Association (ICGA), to be officially founded at #ICCG15 in Kiel in 2028. See here for more information: construction-grammar.org

Today's Daily Cartoon for @newyorker.com by Kevin Maher and me.

I would like a personal apology from every man who called the station or emailed me personally to gripe about my voice during my time on public radio but never did the same to Ira Glass.

In the first @gallup.com survey on the topic, 7 in 10 Americans oppose the construction of data centers in their area, including nearly half who strongly oppose it. news.gallup.com/poll/709772/...

Some reflections on frequently unasked questions about stochastic parrots (the phrase and the paper): medium.com/@emilymenonb...

Journalists, let’s be careful about the language we use when writing or talking about AI. Here’s a thread — @emilymbender.bsky.social, I know you pay attention to this, too, so feel free to chime in. (1/x)

"Predictably, the huge spike in productivity that these companies claim their own AI products have enabled hasn’t resulted in more or better products, shorter work weeks, or better consumer experiences." www.404media.co/software-dev...

"The recent change to our course-management system has meant that I need to re-upload every document and assignment and reassign every homework. I will be attending three two-hour training sessions to help me do this." buff.ly/lv7w8kf

Happy May Day. They can’t kill us all.

i once saw a book review that described skimming the references of a book as seeing “who is cited and who is slighted”. anyway, today i observed that a new book “in my area” has zero bybee citations, and i think that explains a lot

Just released & free to download for two weeks: "Constructions, Networks and Linguistic Change" by Graeme Trousdale and Elizabeth Closs Traugott in the Cambridge Elements Construction Grammar Series #language #linguistics doi.org/10.1017/9781...

Version 1.0 of the Grammaticon is now online! This has been in the making for over eight years. Quite a few of the entries are still preliminary, but I hope to expand and improve it over the coming months and years. Comments are welcome! An intro text is here: dlc.hypotheses.org/4316

file this under “getting old”: can we all agree not to use emoji to react to emails? who thought that was a good idea?

I don't need a summary of what's available online, in biographies, or even in my own notes. I need to comb through and find the great details, decide what interests ME. No, it's not efficient. It's slow and painstaking. But I don't believe in efficiency as an ultimate good, especially in writing. /

Meanwhile, the people I see complaining about this usually use the term "AI" without saying what they mean by it. In other words, they're starting the conversation form a non-nuanced position. >>

Computational Papers (CPs) are always Annoying To Read (ATR) because of their Extensive Use of Abbreviations (EUA). After Some Time (AST) reading a CP, there are No Words (NW) left TR due to the EUA, and I Almost Give Up On Even Trying (IAGUOET) TR the CP because it is so ATR any text with EUA.

If I had a nickel for every time I decided to stop using a “cognitive linguistics of ASL” paper because my students get too distracted by problematic examples, I would have two nickels. …Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.

here’s the thing, I’m not going to make an account just so i can decline your review request 👻

the absolute nerve of my electric company to jack up prices to subsidize energy-hungry data centers AND THEN SEND ME automated messages about how much more i am spending on electricity year-over-year as though i had just left the lights on 🪫🤬💸

I’m behind the trend on this one but I’m about halfway through Enshittification and enjoying it. Aside from the inherent dissatisfaction and frustration of the phenomenon, that is. Going to continue to be mindful about where I spend my money and attention in 2026 us.macmillan.com/books/978037...

thank you to my non-linguist friends who texted me this photo because they remembered that i do not like him

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 don't know how many times this needs to be said, but apparently a lot: If you are not in a position to verify the accuracy of some synthetic text, the synthetic text is not useful/has a high potential to be misleading. This is one of those cases.

“it’s *giv*ing season 🍁 😊” “it’s giving *sea*son 💅 💃“ #linguistics

🤦‍♂️

Breaking news: Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani is elected as the next mayor of New York City, defeating former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and becoming the first Muslim and first of Indian descent to hold the office. https://wapo.st/47rlrDf

‘Study after study shows that students want to develop these critical thinking skills, are not lazy, and large numbers of them would be in favor of banning ChatGPT and similar tools in universities’, says @olivia.science www.ru.nl/en/research/...

even with the -ai trick and scrolling down past the first several results, google still hides automatically generated misinformation on every page. it’s unusable. can’t wait for this bubble to burst

Every time I sit down to write a piece I feel certain that I would rather die than actually write it and yet somehow I would rather die ten times harder before I ever let the word machine write for me.

Important reading as you prepare for your semester

“I watched Snow White when I was a kid but I ain’t give a bitch a poison apple yet” is just an objectively great line. 😂

UPDATE: Abstract deadline: Nov 1, 25! Invited speakers: Corrine Occhino, Dagmar Divjak, Idan Blank, Randy Allen Harris, Gary Lupyan, Laura Michaelis, Kanishka Misra ! @dagmardivjak.bsky.social @randyallenharris.bsky.social @congramqueen.bsky.social @glupyan.bsky.social @kanishka.bsky.social

10 years ago this month, i defended my dissertation. i scrounged up two pictures from the day. linguistics is an odd, sometimes challenging field, but i’ve been incredibly privileged to learn and travel with great advisors, colleagues, and friends along the way 😌😌

OK so I LOLed at the dinosaurs in Central Park www.aiweirdness.com/chatgpt-will...

“A legitimate PhD-level expert in anything,” they said. “Show me a diagram of the US presidents since FDR, with their names and years in office under their photos,” I said.

Sunk-cost fallacy and cheating students are the only things keeping AI in business at this point. Just look at how usage of ChatGPT plummets as soon as the semester ends.

So glad this is out! Still wish we had the data processed in time for @jmhenner.bsky.social to use but pleased to have his contribution in more ways than 1. See below for a brief commentary re Jon, deaf linguists & participating in SiL research and doing it in a way that disrupts or crips it all

i love reading old ASL syntax papers. everything is so straightforward. a star for this, a checkmark for that, no need to know what the signs even are or what the context was… 🫠🫠🫠

Ten Percent Of U.S. High School Students Graduating Without Basic Object Permanence Skills

finally en route to what might just be the best Ling Institute ever, in Eugene OR! Can't wait to see old friends and meet new ones! ‪@lsa2025uo.bsky.social‬ center.uoregon.edu/LSA/2025/

Really infuriating stuff. There's no place for AI in the classroom. AFT needs to follow the lead of @aaup.org and understand that these technologies are part of the increasing move to corporatize the classroom.

Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assemblyman, declared victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary after Andrew Cuomo conceded the race. “Tonight we made history,” Mamdani said, addressing his supporters. wapo.st/44yMVoI

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

if i can be y’all’s dad for a second: one of the most important things I’ve learned is that acquiring a skill is literally uncomfortable that awful moment where you feel confused and stupid and embarrassed? it means you’re about to learn something. and it’s *mandatory* if you want to get better