hashtag #linguistics

There are many highs and lows in linguistic research: from tones going up and down to emotional highs and lows like a wedding and a war In this episode we get enthusiastic about fieldwork in Babanki with Dr. Pius Akumbu

🧪 How many times and in what different ways do we need confirmation that genAI is crap for anything except the simplest tasks? *Because it doesn't read, or comprehend, or think*. (also, hilariously, it's the same AI Oxford Uni has just paid some huge sum to licence for all staff & students)

New favourite example of anaphora

🎙️ En el último episodio de su pódcast @lingthusiasm.bsky.social, @gretchenmcc.bsky.social charla con @parasynthetic.bsky.social, sobre los desafíos de traducir «Arroba lengua». 👀 Escúchalo en www.lingthusiasm.com/post/793816227535519744/bonus-103-pos-ya-está-translating-because

Your occasional reminder that "vulva" and "helicopter" share the same etymology (from Proto Indo-European "wel-", meaning "to go around"). So why not spend your Tuesday figuring out how to do the helicopter with your vulva?

Larry Tesler, inventor of the cut, copy, and paste commands, dies at 74

Do you like comic books and want to think more seriously about the linguistics of them? Are you a social scientist or a linguist who wants to know more about nation-building or language planning in fiction? HAVE I GOT EXACTLY THE ARTICLE YOU NEVER ASKED FOR, on CAMP Anthropology. 🐦🐦

i really do think "glorch" is a good contender for a word for "a computer fucking up because some dipshit replaced something that was working fine with some machine learning bullshit"

Grice has entered the chat #linguistics

Linguistics

::slowly stands while clapping::

It's my newsletter for the second quarter of 2025, officially caught up! In which I shamelessly take credit for egging on @superlinguo.bsky.social to write a book so I can have an introduction to Gesture research (I'm generously letting you read it too) gretchenmcculloch.com/2025/09/08/a...

Still so psyched about getting to talk with @parasynthetic.bsky.social about his incredibly thoughtful and creative Spanish translation of Because Internet

I've been informed that today is Read A Book Day How I plan to celebrate it: on other days, we can read (all or part of) several books, but on read a book day we must sadly confine ourselves to reading just one book, in memory of all the people who tragically haven't had enough books to read

It's finally here! I had so much fun talking with @parasynthetic.bsky.social about the many creative choices behind translating Because Internet into Spanish, and now that the Spanish ebook is available all over, you can listen to our chat!

well you see when words are polyamorous they can date BOTH a Greek prefix and a Latin suffix

Omg, here it is. My first interview in English, about the translation I have most enjoyed… and the most struggling one. What a great, scintillating chat I had with @gretchenmcc.bsky.social… even if talking about what I did with the great mind it all was born from commanded such a big respect 🙈

It's finally here! I had so much fun talking with @parasynthetic.bsky.social about the many creative choices behind translating Because Internet into Spanish, and now that the Spanish ebook is available all over, you can listen to our chat!

It's my newsletter for the first quarter of 2025! We celebrated our 100th episodiversary at @lingthusiasm.bsky.social and more assorted linguistics links gretchenmcculloch.com/2025/09/03/j...

The verb 'must' looks a lot like German 'musste' and Dutch 'moest'. But wait a minute: those mean "had to", not "have to". They're past tense forms. Well, 'must' used to be a past tense too! It ditched its present tense, which would've become *moot if it had survived. Here's the story of 'must':

LingComm IRL is a new interview series on the LingComm blog where people can share their face-to-face #lingcomm projects. The first post was about doing linguistics with Girl Scouts in the US, the second is about a a high school linguistics club in Estonia: lingcomm.org/2025/08/27/l...

Is there an equivalent stock phrase to “dónde está la biblioteca” for people learning English? Or really, any other languages? The one phrase that everybody knows and learned in school, even if they do not speak that language at all?

Our cohost @superlinguo.bsky.social is on Let's Learn Everything!

it's my 2024 year in review! (am I half a year behind in getting it up? shhhhhh it's fine don't worry about it we're getting caught up now) gretchenmcculloch.com/2025/08/28/2...

Tell Lauren about any new linguistics podcasts you're aware of, in any language! And if you're looking for more linguistics to listen to, boy do I have a treat for you:

Post #2 in the LingComm IRL series is about how PhD student Mari-Liis Korkus got inspired by talking with people at the first @lingcomm.bsky.social conference to set up a linguistics club for high school students at home in Tartu, Estonia! lingcomm.org/2025/08/27/l...

cute little "because internet" cameo in this episode of Words Unravelled with @jesszafarris.bsky.social, @robwords.bsky.social and @grammargirl.bsky.social! youtu.be/9C9nvVUEuOI?...

WaPo opinion piece claims that 'delve' occurs more in LLMs because AI companies hire a lot of people in Nigeria and Kenya More on the linguistic frequency of 'delve', by the great @kolatubosun.bsky.social, a favorite post at @flaminghydra.com flaminghydra.com/delving-into...

Something very very weird happened during the Hugos award ceremony... It's been on my mind for days, and so I wrote this blog: "When People Giggle at Your Name, or the 2025 Hugo Awards Incident" grigorylukin.com/2025/08/21/w... #Worldcon

the first crash course linguistics video now has a million views, @superlinguo.bsky.social @jessgrieser.com aren't you glad we worked on this in 2020 anyway if you want some fun 10 min linguistics videos to watch you can still do that!

the first crash course linguistics video now has a million views, @superlinguo.bsky.social @jessgrieser.com aren't you glad we worked on this in 2020 anyway if you want some fun 10 min linguistics videos to watch you can still do that!

Missed the previous episode? Check out our episode about why deciding what’s in and what’s out of the definition of a word is so dang tricky here:

This month's bonus episode is about linguistic landscapes! Help us keep the show running and get access to over 100 bonus episodes by becoming a patron:

You can read the transcript for 'Urban Multilingualism' here:

Many cities are host to hundreds of languages that don't show up on official records. In this episode we get enthusiastic about urban multilingualism!

Hey everybody! @drjuliawester.bsky.social and I have a new paper! We surveyed over 800 scientists, science communicators, and science educators who use social media. Conclusion: Scientists no longer find Twitter useful or pleasant, and many have switched to Bluesky! 🧪🌎🦑 doi.org/10.1093/icb/...

When you struggle to find the equivalent of a word or phrase in another language, do you sometimes find yourself opening Wikipedia, searching for it then navigating to the "languages" section to get its title in the other language? Well, I do, and I got tired of it, hence: #linguistics #xl8 #xl9n

This is really fascinating Wikipedia's list of linguistic and stylist "tells" of AI writing, the better to help editors recognize it en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

delightful!

I like this quote from James Murray (original main lexicographer behind the Oxford English Dictionary) as cited in @dannybate.bsky.social's Why Q Needs U

The internet isn’t ruining language or writing, it’s merely expanding the ways that writing is used, says linguist @gretchenmcc.bsky.social‬ #writing #internet #linguistics #language

So, today the 11 year old told me "sup" is a greeting like "hey" or "yo." I told her it's derived from "what's up." She looked at me like I was 700 years old and explaining that the word nickname comes from "eke name." Feel like @gretchenmcc.bsky.social should hear about this.

I submit for the internet's consideration the coinage "yaybe" It's when you're not sure if the yay is gonna happen

In her “Let’s Learn Everything” podcast interview, @gretchenmcc.bsky.social refers to writing as a technology several times, exploring the consequences of that in a way that blows her hosts’ minds in ever-more-delightful ways…

Do you take photos of linguistically interesting signage? Join the club!

Good news (for me!) my gender bias paper from 2023 still replicates with GPT-5. Bad news (for everyone!) my gender bias paper from 2023 still replicates with GPT-5. arxiv.org/pdf/2308.14921 hkotek.com/blog/gender-...

Do you take photos of linguistically interesting signage? Join the club!

The Bluesky Dictionary is tracking every single word used on the social media service. As of this writing, almost 40% of the dictionary has been covered, including recent additions like “boneshakers”, “microscale”, and “striations”. (via @gretchenmcc.bsky.social) [avibagla.com]