just sent some corrected proofs back, so I feel it is not too premature to celebrate that I have successfully gotten the word "oomph" into a white paper (use not mention!)

more like weaponized doofiness

Each year, University of California campuses have to get approval from the board of regents for orders of new military-grade weapons. On Thursday, regents approved orders for a total of thousands of pepper-balls, rifle rounds, drones and more. www.latimes.com/california/s...

nothing like returning back to academia after a long summer break to remind me how much I love hanging out with neuroatypical people (just walked away from a conversation that was boring me by saying "I'm walking away, this is boring me" and was sent off with cheerful, understanding goodbyes)

one sign; zero pronouns; two anaphors 🐦🐦🐦

UC faculty, please take note of who is being fearless and decisive in standing up for our rights. It’s not the admin, it’s not the senate. They’re structurally unsuited to the way we need to fight right now. It’s @uc-faculty.bsky.social. It’s time to join, if you haven’t already.

I mean, categories in linguistics are as real as categories in biology, which also aren't

will pop music ever again embrace the synthesizer as it did in the 70s? I hope not

an interesting fight on Reddit about the difference between English treating "visa" as a Latin verb morphologically and German treating it like a Latin noun. obviously everyone is right, but I'm curious if there are other examples of the German case (deverbalized loans) 🐦🐦🐦

there's a 7th-grader in Santa Monica named "Elden"

the kids spent the day at the beach referring to the watermelon as "Water Malone", maybe you need that in your life right now

5yo: "If he did that, I would kick him in the nuts for a living." me: "What?!" 5yo: "That means I would do it until he died."

delighted to report we've leveled out of the phase now where a) time can only be communicated in length of TV shows; b) all salient TV shows bundle 2 or more mini episodes into a 20ish-min package episode; & c) the child cannot understand the difference regardless of how it is presented to him

TIL that in Irish you can use the word 'demon' as a negative quantifier and it's called "demonic negation" (McCloskey 2009), e.g. Dheamhan duine a bhuaileann sé. demon person that hits he 'Not one person does he hit.' 🐦🐦🐦

just got back from Yosemite to this heartening news. this country is being beaten to a pulp, and it's inspiring to see some resistance, especially in the name of these beautiful lands we colonized 🌲🙏

dear philosophers and linguists who work on slurs, I don't really care whether you're a member of the relevant class, there's really no excuse for even mentioning a slur directed at a group of people, it's so triggering. plenty of words like "cur" and "debris" to exemplify your point

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...

that "the other day" can only refer to days in the past is the best evidence for the metaphysical future-as-modal hypothesis 🐦🐦🐦

This was like lancing a boil.

Very sorry to hear that James Dobson died peacefully

I know almost everything sucks ass now, but I'm here to tell you you can buy exploded freeze-dried Skittles, they are delicious share.google/OcxsdXQLAYwH...

two types of people in the world: those who write in references as they go along, and psychopaths

check it they made a kids book about how much peer review sucks www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acsb...

terrible show idea: Third Reich from the Sun

UC Regent Jay Sures sued a UCLA student for protest. Of course it's pro-Palestinian protest. And of course he said it was antisemitic. Ben Gharagozli and I represent the student. We beat the case. Now we're suing to make him pay our fees. Let’s break down what he said and why it matters. 🧵

90% of my student interactions these days: student: oh you study meaning, are you working w AI to help chatbots better understand language? me: uh no because they're not designed to understand anything." student: *blank stare* (1/2)

I hate breakfast pastries come at me

seeking advice from French or France-adjacent people on best practices for carrying a baguette on a motor scooter TIA

WHAT EVERYTHING MEANS ✔️ sesame seeds ✔️ poppy seeds ✖️ fennel seeds ✔️ salt ✖️ sunflower seeds ✔️ dried garlic ✖️ cheese

LA Times: "'It backfired,' said one senior administrator at UCLA, reflecting the sense of whiplash. .... 'Within hours of announcing our settlement, the DOJ was on our back.' WHO COULD'VE SEEN THIS COMING www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0ypqo...

even prescriptive grammarians are more chill than fucking Alan Dershowitz

neuroatypical 10yo distressed to learn that happy hour is traditionally a 2-hour interval

This entire thread, from a lawyer representing Jewish UCLA faculty who tried to intervene to stop the "anti-semitism" case, is worth a read. A clear message from UCLA's shameful settlement and today's news about funding terminations is: No amount of capitulation will satisfy this administration.

TIL that "APT" in the song by Rosé and Bruno Mars is an abbreviation of the Korean "apateu" which is an English loanword for "apartment" (perhaps this is common knowledge but 🐦🐦 just in case)

neuroatypical 10yo: lots of dolphins in the water at surf camp again today me: Wow, swimming w dolphins is most people's dream! 10yo: ...we weren't swimming we were surfing me: I mean they dream of being in the water w dolphins. 10yo: ...Anytime they're in the ocean they're in the water w dolphins

Calling all first-gen linguistics students! The First Gen Access & Equity (FGAE) Committee is offering a $500 travel grant to support one first-generation student attending the 2026 LSA Annual Meeting in New Orleans! Apps due July 31! www.lsadc.org/content.asp?... #LSA2026 #FirstGen #Linguistic

hell yes

9/ UCLA should not be paying people who make unfounded claims of antisemitism—or the lawyers who enable them.

so frustrating, UCLA

defies everything I know about language change (admittedly little) that people are still saying "cum" in the Latinate sense... isn't "slash" doing all of that work these days? is it just a register thing? 🐦🐦

And with the other Algonquian form of "big", you get *michi-gami > "Michigan" 😁 And also *michi-ziibi ("big river") > Mississippi. Over in Eastern Algonquian, the same morpheme is in mishadchu ("big hill") > mishadchuwesut (loc. "at the big hill") > Massachusetts.

8: age my children are allowed to weed wack* unsupervised 12: age my children are allowed to get a phone device 14: age my children are allowed to open a box of cereal

was very surprised at how much new-to-me old information this contains. so important.

hell fucking yes www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...

such an obnoxious genre of person, so deserving of this moniker, let's share and spread, people

Fuck UCLA

Parent of the year

cut up a meatloaf into large cubes and presented it to my children as Minecraft Meatballs please clap

neurodivergent 10yo reading a greeting card out loud: "first page: a picture of a turtle. second page: they didn't write anything. third page: they wrote 'Hi [name]..."

there are a bunch of bisyllabic words that are initial-stress in Australian English but final-stress in American English... are they all French loanwords?! some examples: - massage - garage - croissant 🐦🐦