Today I shamefacedly approached circulation at the library with a stack of literally-years-late books to return, and got just the kindest and least judgemental response from the librarian staffing the desk.

Have reached the stage of moving where the concept of possessions feels like a foolish mistake.

It took me a second, first glance was just "huh, ugly yarn", but as soon as I started actually parsing the image I kept noticing worse and worse problems with it.

When I was a kid I used to suddenly rearrange everything in my room occasionally, usually in the middle of the night. And actually, I still do that semi-regularly with my office or our bedroom—I've been held back from it the last few years only because there's been too much junk in the way.

I used to manage wine programs for movie theaters and I am in the extremely unique position to say with professional certainty that the answer here is a crisp Albariño.

this is why it's especially grating to me when people from small towns and the suburbs complain about what they see downtown. They do not understand that this the price of maintaining the illusion of their small town/suburb not having social issues.

The only thing ChatGPT ever does.

Upon reflection, it was an exciting choice to make something l-shaped as my first ever mitred-corner project. But I feel very accomplished!

I am pleased to report that a warmed up mince tart with ice cream on the side delivers a reasonable facsimile of Christmas pudding, with substantially less effort.

So if you're a Pony collector in the SF Bay Area and have a secondhand Moondancer whose muzzle has a weird red stain, that was me. It's tomato soap. Or a Seashell with a narrow, diagonal scrape along her blaze. Me, again.

Plot twist! Though I did indeed have marjoram and savory, and managed to find thyme after some panicked rummaging, it turns out we have no sage! (Fortunately the other 3 herbs top all "what can I substitute for sage?" lists.)

Every few years I decide I'm going to make the ancestral stuffing/dressing recipe. It is so good, and has only 5 non-herb ingredients, but is a bit of a pain because I don't otherwise keep bread around, and have to plan in advance so it has time to go stale.

For the first time in literally years, I have my grades submitted before the winter break! Please clap for this accomplishment in the category of "literally my job".

Obviously some IPA symbols are objectively* better than others. For example, [ʃ] is particularly lovely when writing by hand. Any other favourites? (* very very subjectively)

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

It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans. 🧵 1 of 9

I was today-years-old when I learned that the childhood sandwich filling I knew only as "liner" was almost certainly "Lyoner-style Bologna". Please note: it was never once, to my knowledge, called anything other than [laɪnɚ], by either my mother or my grandmother.

I know I have typography nerds as well as DP syntax nerds in my followers. Please someone make a tiktok about each of these problems?

I said “it sounds like you’re just feeding municipal vehicles to the hill” and the mayor of Montreal started crying

It's fascinating to observe the contexts in which I apparently turn off vocal fry (I can't really do it on purpose). Recent examples: announcements to students during tests/exams; talking to yet another person in a frustrating phone tree.

For the second year in a row, the wealth gains for the 100 richest Americans exceeded what ALL American households spent on groceries combined. ~$995B for billionaires vs ~$775B in total grocery spending. We have an oligarchy and inequality problem masquerading as an affordability crisis.

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.

Pleased to report that I'm now about halfway through organizing my Scottish country dancing booklets, leaflets, and miscellaneous inherited photocopies, and the 3-hole-punch plastic magazine holders are working well! @marcmagus.bsky.social

DEC 15 2025: STOP BUYING STARBUCKS DAY Starbucks Baristas are asking us to stop buying Starbucks on December 15th. Remember, it's not customer vs. worker, it's the 99% vs. the 1%. Baristas are your labor family, let's all help them out! mailchi.mp/d86e5090fce2...

For complex reasons that I mostly do not regret, I am embarking on a ~14 hour red-eye journey home (really 10 hours, but I miscalculated and am at the airport 4.5 hours early). This would be just about tolerable, except this airport is playing nonstop garbage Christmas music. 🙃

abolish geniuses

Protip to my fellow academics: if you ever organize an event, put the organizing committee's names on the program just in case you ever have to "prove" you indeed organized it.

A great episode so far, but I had some whiplash 20 minutes in: I too am someone who would not be where I am today were it not for Testing Well, but then I immediately hit the hilarious spit take of Elon Musk apparently attending "Queen's College" in Canada.

And if you find yourself deep within a gambling addiction: There is no shame, nor is there anything wrong with seeking help if you do not feel strong enough to stop on your own. Some resources below:

This is factual reporting.

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...

We need to stop talking about bike lanes. This isn’t about bike lanes. It’s explicitly the requirement to own a car to live in this fucking country. This has to shift to a story frame of affordability and not infrastructure or space. Cuz that story is lost to conservative virtue signalling

just a quick holiday psa because it's almost december and i see people make this mistake in their festive art every year without fail

Just got a work email that referred to something next happening in 2033, and I legit thought it was a typo before I realized that no, we just live in the future.

Do you know Zoom & other companies are encouraging discrimination against employees for things like "pausing too long" or not sounding sufficiently "charismatic"? Read all about our dystopian present in my new paper, out today in JASA! (Seriously, read it. It's important) doi.org/10.1121/10.0...

America is a country that will test UBI hundreds of times, get the same radically positive results each time, and still look at it askance, but will also put untested robotaxis on the road because a billionaire threw a shit fit.

kconrod.medium.com/the-problem-... okay here

"'We are both scamming each other, you and I, and I intend to win.' When a classroom becomes adversarial, of course, as cop shit presumes, then there must be a clear winner and loser." - Jeffery Moro, Against Cop Shit jeffreymoro.com/blog/2020-02...

The unspeakable social anxiety of trying to figure out which specific set of people it makes sense to invite to a given event / activity / gathering.

Montreal is our European city and hopefully the rest of the country learns from this. Also, now I'll be singing "Bye bye, mon cowboy/bye bye mon gigolo" all week.

I hate when I have a problem (~100 Scottish country dance books, no good way to store them), and figure out a solution (scan them!), only to realize this creates a series of new logistical quandaries (Hire someone or do it myself? Destroy the books for easier scanning or no?)

Happy to share the first version of my textbook "Quantitative Data Analysis for Linguists in R". stefanocoretta.github.io/qdal/ Comments and suggestions welcome! (on the GitHub repo: github.com/stefanocoret...) The textbook takes you from 0 to basic stat modelling with Bayesian regression.

Before I vote in this, I have some important questions. Specifically: are either "ding" ('to charge an unexpected fee or penalty') or "renoviction" ('to evict by (claiming to be) planning to renovate') actually Canadian?

Wait, what? I'm suddenly wondering how many people have politely pretended not to notice what they assumed was a speech error over the years. (Also, I 100% did not know that there was a literal gong show)

Next time you have imposter syndrome, remember THIS got published in Nature

PLEASE, retail workers from a religious minority living under Christian hegemony year-round (factcheck: true) the public space stuff this time of year is a lot (though I'd 100% take public Christmas but w/national abortion access if playing forced choice, ofc) PLEASE DO THIS it is a kindness

Okay, if you come from a homemade fruitcake tradition, how much alcohol would you say each cake gets soaked in, on average?

Hey linguists, check it out! @lingsocam.bsky.social has virtual registration options for the #LSA2026 meeting: web.cvent.com/event/d45318... 🐦🐦

Life is short. Use the stickers.