"Bloodless coups" in Arab monarchies are usually staged to make incoming leaders look powerful and consolidate power

So, while Milton Keynes is exceptional in the context of England, my Texas hometown is exceptional because they intentionally planned the downtown area with lots of curved road and gave them goofy names like "This Way" and "That Way".

"WHOA-ha-kuh" (Oaxaca)

The closest independent bookstore to my mom's house is 39 minutes away :/

Does everyone else practice lipreading on those gifs that have the text below them, and see if the text is accurate? Maybe this is just me?

My grandpa said that during the Depression he "didn't have a good daddy" because his dad didn't go hunt rabbits and raccoons so they could have meat on the table. My grandma, however, was fine with beans for dinner. 🫘

My mom pronounces Jarritos as "juh-REE-doze" and says she will not change her mind about this

Egypt vs. Cabo Verde in the final?

There are a staggering FIVE Clevelands in Wisconsin. That may be the most places sharing a name that I have seen in a single state; usually, when they set up the post office, officials will reject a name if it is taken.

Domestic animals I've personally sighted while jogging in my in-laws' neighborhood in the Hill Country: Horses Goats Cows Alpacas Kangaroos Oryx Pronghorn antelope IIRC

Why not go all the way and call it a "hydration haitus"

www.maptap.gg June 23 99🔥 98🔥 92👑 91🎉 94🏆 Final score: 936

Cell phones have really put a damper on the market for tiny, weak, awkwardly shaped flashlights

Someone just singularized LENS as LEN. The sunglasses are missing a LEN.

Toddler English word of the day swimsoups ≈ swimsuit ex "Mommy has her swimsoups on!"

The album of the day is Sweet Shivers (2019) by The Rocket Summer aka Bryce Avary

Are there any historians who don't constantly name drop? Other than my dear friend, Sir Herbert Butterfield, I mean

I missed one I've been to! 🤦‍♂️ Here is a snow angel from the area in 2017. (I'll let you guess which of the five.) www.maptap.gg June 22 100🎯 96🏅 98🔥 96🏅 100🎯 Final score: 980

youtu.be/FPnYkGvB-Cs?... To anyone wanting to learn ASL I have links to resources pinned to my bio!

My brother watching Return of the King for the first time: "Is he gonna throw Frodo in?" (Sam carrying Frodo)

4y/o has never watched a soccer game but he is shouting "Egypt scored a goal!!!"

My present to you all today is that I wrote a bunch of complaints about the holiday and deleted them yw

About five years ago I stopped by a cassette tape shop [!] in Mleiha (small Bedouin town in inland Sharjah) and I didn't have a cassette player, so the shopkeeper sold me an mp3 CD [!] of Emirati music which lives in my UAE car because that is my only CD player [!] in the UAE

Following Wiktionary, descendants of PIE *wóbʰseh₂ underwent metathesis independently in three separate subfamilies: In SW Iranian wabz > bawz In English waps > wasp In Proto-Italic wopsā > wospā

www.maptap.gg June 20 96🏅 100🎯 90🎉 87🎓 90🎉 Final score: 907 Hard clues today! Once again, only bullseye was the one I've been to.

Kid English word of the day sonner ≈ sonar ex "A sonner air-ray is hidden in the bo!" Tr. A sonar array is hidden in the bow. He insists that it's SONNER (rhymes with "Donner").

Distance: 9.5 miles Stroller: Mile 6 to end Cattle guards: 6 Avg pace: 11:13/mi 😅 Temp. at start: 71°F 🥶 Gain: 500 ft Splits: Bad but who cares Zone 2: Impossible Tiny fawn: Yes Bats: Not today Satan

Perhaps we need a new term for a town name, used as a "shibboleth", wherein the town is so minor that only locals *could* pronounce it correctly; and it practically behaves like a "dog whistle", though I'm not sure that the naming practice is so nefarious as that would imply ...

Looking at you, Lima, New York

The existence of Texans, Texians, and Tejanos (all different meanings) implies the existence of Texites, Texish, and Texers

Anything can be a shibboleth, everything is a shibboleth

Wow, my mutuals on here are party animals.

Watch movie? Or—hear me out—toponym spreadsheet?

It took hours because I am not very handy, but I fixed the Schwinn double stroller and took the kids on a victory ride. It cost about $49.

Northern Emirates / Musandam area wēn ~ weyn (all areas) wey (Ruus Al Jibal) heyn (inland Musandam only) feyn (inland Musandam only)

Did you see that ludicrous display last night

Maybe if I have enough caffeine I can digitize this. (The copyright has gone out on it, but HathiTrust doesn't care.)

I wonder if I can find an old geographic dictionary or pronunciation guide that would say whether these are old dialectal pronunciations or if they are all just weird.

Quote from one of the participants: "I speak Setswana. At least, I think it's Setswana." Great illustration of heavy contact influence in urban areas.

Rebellion.

I only bullseyed the ones I've been to www.maptap.gg June 19 100🎯 96🏅 95🏆 100🎯 91🎉 Final score: 959

Happy Juneteenth! Reminder that the reason for the 2+ year delay between when the Emancipation Proclamation was given and when emancipation was enforced in Texas was due to a concentrated effort by slaveholders to resist freedom.

Serendipity: The author was from New Tripoli, pronounced /trɪˈpoʊli/ trih-POH-lee according to Wikipedia.

Come to America, where you can learn to pronounce the great capitals of the world! "Athens" (AY-thinz), "Cairo" (KAY-ro), and "Prague" (PRAYG) Bonus: "Milan" (MY-lin) is in "Italy" (IT-lee)

The origins of unusual place-names Armond and Winifred Moyer babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu...

Congrats to the two [2] Texans this summer (so far) who have registered that we live in a place that was struck by thousands of drone attacks and hundreds of missiles

Then the l-d* answered Job out of the whirlwind: "Why does gravity make things fall down? What's Christ? What temperature is hot hot hot hot? What temperature is it at the North Pole? How do you make the moon? Why did God name it Pipe Creek after he named all the cities and other countries?" *lad

Over 3000 dead in Iran, nearly 4000 in Lebanon, and dozens of others in Saudi, Kuwait, UAE, Iraq, Palestine, Oman

More piano practice today—I'm guessing this is basically the final boss of piano and that after this I can start working on Kapustin's Toccatina

They do this even for local club teams AFAIK