In her #NWAV53 plenary, King discusses an example of a juror being dismissed from the pool due to forestressing in the word police (so PO-lice), because the prosecutor claimed that the pronunciation showed animus towards law enforcement. And this is exactly why I study prosody!

Georgetown linguists are giving 6 talks and 2 posters at #NWAV53 this week! #Linguistics 🧵

On my way to Michigan for #NWAV53 ✈️ flying northwesterly to DTW, like northern cities TRAP

Y'all know what to do!

Let’s be clear, most EBT users are white. The reason he’s specifically lying about “weaves” and we’ve seen so many AI fakes of Black women ranting about food stamps is they need to make BW the face EBT because they know many Americans don’t care if Black people suffer, and some actually wish for it.

NYC linguists give the linguistic answer, but also patiently explain why this isn't an excuse: “We can learn hard names. We can do it. We can figure out how the spellings map to the sounds. We can all get there. We just have to practice.” - @laurelmack.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

"Knowledge is worth your time because of how it shapes your mind...even when it's not obvious how you will profit from it. You are more than a future source of profit, and humanity's survival depends on all of us understanding this."

I'm working on my NWAV talk, and I just want to meditate on the beauty and the chaos of the hand-drafted vowel plots from Labov, Yaeger, Steiner (1972)

I'm just a simple country doctor, but maybe it was a bad idea to outsource so much of higher ed's infrastructure to private companies' proprietary technologies with single points of failure.

Imagine working in a restaurant where the boss tells you the job performance is based only on tables served. But then every shift you are scheduled to the stockroom, the dishwashing station, and occasionally to like, trim the hedges outside. Anyway. I'm an associate professor...

I've received an 'exclusive' invite to try Nature's new 'research assistant', which will burn down a forest to provide a 'summary of the paper' I'm reading and I have SUCH exciting news for them, that's called an 'abstract' and the actual authors already wrote it for me, no forest-burning required.

In about three years the entire university pivot to AI curricula and schools and programs is going to be so deeply embarrassing. We will all pretend it never happened and I will be standing there, looking at people with a mirror in my eyes. This is all so embarrassing.

BREAKING from PP We found immigration agents have held more than 170 *citizens* The govt doesn't track citizens held. So we did. We tallied: Nearly 20 kids, two w/ cancer More than 20 citizens held for day or more, incommunicado www.propublica.org/article/immi... by @nicolefoy.bsky.social

started / going

if you're on the academic job market: check out the most recent episode of @quantitude.bsky.social, about The Job Talk - it's a great discussion of this kinda niche presentation genre & all it needs to accomplish (preview: it's not just about presenting all your research/making you look smart)

end of an era!

Full-throated defense of trans people is a good thing.

I don’t really advise students about their degree courses but, my goodness, when it comes to options, tracks, the choices they make en route to their degrees, I tell them to do what they want to do, rather than what they might think they ought to do.

Advanced Tongue Route, obviously #IPA #Linguistics

I need people to stop referring to conversion "therapy" as something that's been discredited or doesn't work. That's like saying torture is "discredited" or doesn't work. That they don't work for their stated purpose is secondary to the fact that they DO work for their REAL purpose:

"certain types of bodies are indicative of moral repugnance" is a fascist logic. i know you fucking know better! shut the fuck up! your jokes arent even good!

Big news! Starting in 2027, @cambup-linguistics.cambridge.org will publish the Journal of Black Language and Culture (JBLAC)—a new LSA journal highlighting the richness of Black language & culture across the globe. Learn more: www.lsadc.org/content.asp?... @acharityhudley.bsky.social

Thread!!!!

all of these videos are horrifying. what feels so singularly striking and scary to me in all of them is the individual seething contempt and rage of these agents

Curious / terrified about peer review? We are here to help! Join @mariamaly.bsky.social and I October 30th!

The language of non-consent around AI is really telling. "It's too late to be scared." "It's here whether we want it or not." "You'll have to learn to work with it." "You can't fight the inevitable." All just variations of "you're not allowed to say no." Creepy technology made by creepy people.

Eeeeee chapters for this Handbook of Sociophonetics Methods I am co-editing have been rolling in all morning - so exciting!! 🤓

oh my god. did you know? writing every day is easier when you write every day

Do you direct a federally supported #UndergraduateResearch program? Consider submitting a paper to a special issue of PURM, which will focus on what has been accomplished with federal funding and how undergraduate research mentoring is being reshaped by funding cuts. www.elon.edu/u/academics/...

Hey. The fragmentation of the social media landscape has been hard on indie #scicomm 🧪 projects So if you'd like to follow a podcast that's enthusiastic about #linguistics, could you check out @lingthusiasm.bsky.social? And if you think your followers might like to, could you give this a repost?

Im begging the NYT to spend time talking to people who actually teach and work at universities. Especially ones that don't have billion dollar endowments. My issues are AI use, crumbling infrastructure, vanishing staff, unfunded state mandates, a customer service model of education...

Georgetown University is conducting a search for a one-year postdoctoral associate in Applied Linguistics to begin on January 1, 2026. Candidates should apply by October 31 at apply.interfolio.com/174232

Trans rights are not the rights of a tiny minority, trans rights are everyone’s rights to self-determination, control of our bodies, and a society where opportunity and aesthetics are not restricted by sex assigned at birth You should support and defend trans people because trans people are people

The right sets the terms of our political discourse in so many ways, one of which is the idea that there isn't enough "debate" and "free speech" on campus. We need to push back on this. The truth is (speaking for myself as a history prof), I don't really emphasize debate much in my classes/

I find it endlessly frustrating that one of the biggest empirical findings from sociolinguistics is consistently ignored. Change doesn't come from children making mistakes. Change comes from adolescents incrementing existing probabilistic patterns. I haven't read this paper but hopefully it's good.

Life under occupation. 6000 block of 8th St NW, Washington DC, 9/10/25

Constantly hearing how our students need to be experts in “gen AI” to compete on the job market, meanwhile the end goal of every executive is to hire absolutely no one, to pay absolutely no one else’s salary, just to let the little machine make something that they can still sell a subscription for

I think it’s hard for outsiders to grasp how low staff and faculty morale get at universities where everyone’s job gets worse every year because there’s a hiring freeze and program cuts and any real money is locked up in new projects meant to help higher admin shine so they can move somewhere better

Y'all! I'm super honored to be the keynote speaker at next year's Georgetown University Linguistics Roundtable Conference. The theme is Futuring Linguistics! What does the future of linguistics look like? Come engage w/ us in the big questions! gurt.georgetown.edu/gurt-2026-un...

Call for Papers: The Georgetown University Round Table on Languages & Linguistics (GURT), happening in March 2026 in DC. The theme is "FUTURING LINGUISTICS: Content, Curriculum & Careers"! Proposals for papers, posters, & colloquia due 11/17 #linguistics

public sector employment has historically been a more reliable path to the middle class for Black workers, especially Black women, than the private sector where discrimination is rampant, and this is another important reason why the Right wants to destroy the federal government

👏 STOP 👏 TREATING 👏 UNIVERSITIES 👏 AS 👏 A 👏 BUSINESS 👏 Provosts/chancelors/etc should be members of the academic community and paid as such. 👏 STOP 👏 PAYING 👏 HIGHER 👏 EDUCATION 👏 BUREAUCRATS 👏 LIKE 👏 THEY 👏 ARE 👏 CEOS 👏 #AcademicSky

🚨Postdoctoral fellowship in corpus phonetics / data science for speech with me and Ann Bradlow. Position is open immediately. Apply now! 🚨 Details: faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/matt-goldric...

Chapter outlines have been rolling in for the Handbook of Sociophonetic Methods I'm co-editing & I am *so excited* to read all these chapters: the outlines are so good, I am going to learn SO MUCH while reading/editing these things 🤓 (gif of future me inhaling all the expertise on every topic) 🐦🐦

There's a lawsuit about AI stealing your work. It's the same lawyers taking on Elsevier et al in a separate case. Academics: 1. Check if your work is in LibGen at www.theatlantic.com/technology/a... 2. If so, let the lawyers know at www.lieffcabraser.com/anthropic-au...

First day of classes! 🥳 Sociolinguistic Variation, then Sounds of Language. Firing up the ol' ultrasound for articulation demos in the latter 👅 - machine still works, so we should be good to go as long as I don't mix up the bottles of goo on my desk

kitchen table issue: stop kidnapping my neighbors!

This is the AI policy I'm going with this semester

Updating my grad Sociolinguistics syllabus for the Fall, & after the usual "course objectives" section (specific disciplinary content/methods I want people to learn) I've added a small bit describing what I've been thinking of as my "shadow objectives", the values that I want to emphasize this term:

easy - just transfer to the A and ride to the Rockaways, exit above ground at the beach, all the NYC pigeons know this