Observation: most major dictionaries (Merriam, Dictionary.com, American Heritage, Cambridge, Collins, etc.) only define _die_ (or _dice_) as a six-sided cube; no recognition of other shapes as used e.g. in TTRPGs. (OED, in an unrevised entry, allows for this in passing.)

Today in #Australian English, I got my first natural use of "not here to fuck spiders", which was exciting

In which I learn that _farewell_ can be used as a verb in Australian English. (The Australian National Dictionary has this from 1878, but it was new to me!)

By the always excellent Erin Davis, a chart of the first names that have seen the greatest (estimated) drop in living Americans with that name. Much more here, including an interactive to look the trends for any first name: erdavis.com/2026/02/16/i...

I have seen the Southern Cross for the first time. I should write a song about the experience!

Zero-derivativation Down Under. I think @fritinancy.bsky.social collects examples of this sort of thing?

I feel a sudden urge to solve a crossword puzzle.

Australia has the cuddliest names for their animals

More Sydney linguistic observations: An eight-year-old girl ran up to a three-year-old girl in my party, and excitedly shouted "six-seven!" at her. Didn't know it was a thing here.

Been in Sydney for 20m, and I've heard "no worries" two dozen times already, but no "no wuckers"s yet. I feel cheated.

At the Amex Centurion lounge at LAX, ordered a bourbon neat, and was told that they were _required_ to give me at least one rock (though I could remove it). WTF?

Important #fandom antedating for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: "SMOF", for Secret Master of Fandom, said to have been in use at the 1963 Worldcon, now has an actual example from 1963. sfdictionary.com/view/197/smof

Tomorrow, I will be going to Australia and New Zealand for 2 1/2 weeks, so I will be even less frequent in my posting (including HDSF updates), and this might occur at weirder times. Relatedly, if I know you and you'll be in Sydney or Auckland soon, let's get together!

Tomorrow, I will be going to Australia and New Zealand for 2 1/2 weeks, so I will be even less frequent in my posting (including HDSF updates), and this might occur at weirder times. Relatedly, if I know you and you'll be in Sydney or Auckland soon, let's get together!

Happily, I'm quoted in the NYT today about words cyclically coming back into use, like earworms from forgotten songs. English has a rich trove of vocab to pull from, and any song, book, or movie can bring those words back in rotation. Thanks @samcorbin.bsky.social! www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/c...

Antedating o'the day for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: "actifan", fr 1941 to 1940 (ref to Forrest J. Ackerman). Delighted to announce that this was sent in by Jeff Prucher, editor of the Hugo-winning Brave New Words, who is contributing once again! sfdictionary.com/view/1687/ac...

Brains Are Weird, episode 3592: Had an extended dream about hot girls trading commodities. Woke up & realized I was conflating plot of Trading Places (focused on frozen OJ futures), which I haven't seen in decades, w/ the recent news that Minute Maid was discontinuing sales of frozen OJ cylinders.

IAW I am using cringe slang at my daughter and she is making fun of me and I am proud of her

Prounouns in the #crossword in *1930*!

There's no easy way to say this: isthmus

More new entries for interstellar-travel fans, in the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: Today's batch: "Arcturan" + vars., with 2 nouns +1 adj. From 1920 onwards, still in broad use. sfdictionary.com/view/3061/ar... sfdictionary.com/view/3066/ar... sfdictionary.com/view/3068/ar...

Hello, looks like independent publishers should beef up our books coverage. If you're into the idea of joining the @flaminghydra.com collective and writing a book review each month (800-2000 word range), please send us your ideas and some clips to [email protected]

Speaking of books (please, can we speak of books, instead of their death?), I'd vaguely heard of the poet / polymath Weldon Kees, but didn't know anything about him. It was thus a great pleasure to watch this bio by Dana Gioa. Will be seeking his work out now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9GP...

Nothing against the lads from Wolverhampton, but as a UK-knowledgeable American I'm still astonished to learn just how massive a band Slade was. Six #1 singles! _17_ consecutive top-20 singles! First band to have three singles debut at #1!

OK today I read the news, listened to a Smog album, and watched Kurosawa's _Ran_, and there isn't enough MDMA in the world to get me into a good mood. Is it too early to go to sleep and hope for a reset in the morning?

"Caouissin ... would like to think the language will follow a similar path to Welsh, which has enjoyed a revival over the past half-century and is spoken by 538,000 people" People keep getting this wrong about Welsh! There has not been a "revival". Let me explain. 1/

In another venue, @petermgilliver.bsky.social has called my attention to this outstanding event—a performance of the complete choral music of Thomas Tallis in one (long) day, and I think I have to plan a trip to Oxford to attend it. www.justgiving.com/campaign/tal...

New entry for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: "bemmy", a hypocoristic form of everyone's favorite alien-related term "BEM" (bug-eyed monster). From the late '40s; popularized in Andre Norton's Star Rangers; still in use. sfdictionary.com/view/3054/be...

Not too many things make me happy nowadays, but a spectacular @robynw414.bsky.social Friday #crossword puzzle is one of them. _So good_ today! And in such a fun way; my brain slowly plodded through it and felt better and better as I filled it in.

Looking urgently for a #reviewer for a corpus-based analysis of N most frequent words - in #NLP / #NLProc / #linguistics applications - Even better if you care about Semitic languages but not a requirement Please Emil / DM me if you can review! Please boost otherwise 🙂 Thanks!

Fans of early #comics & the history of slang might be interested to know of the _free_ availability of the 1993 book _A TAD Lexicon_, by #Dictionary of American Regional English editor Leonard Zwilling, about the linguistic contributions of T.A. "TAD" Dorgan. scholarsmine.mst.edu/artlan_phil_...

Today's update for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: "Galactic", for a language spoken throughout a galaxy. Was 1954; added several early-1950s quotes in different nuances. Other cleanup and linking as well. sfdictionary.com/view/1633/ga...

Fuckin' NYT robbin' me of my royalties

That think where I'm ravenous and trying to rush making a late dinner, and I grab a red tube from the fridge and squeeze two tablespoons of harissa into my pasta. Whoops.

Early Modernists: I've encountered a symbol in a page signature and don't know how to represent it in a citation. The closest I can find in MS Word is unicode 0260, "Latin small letter g with hook." How would you represent this? Does it have a name?

New entries for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction! The group of "Capellan" entries, referring to those from the Capella system (the star in Auriga). From the 1920s, still in use. sfdictionary.com/view/3063/ca... sfdictionary.com/view/3064/ca... sfdictionary.com/view/3059/ca...

Americans will do anything to avoid the metric system, part eleventy-billion.

Another freaking f-word. New post for @stronglang.bsky.social about "freaking" as a euphemistic intensifier: stronglang.wordpress.com/2026/01/22/a... 🐦🐦

Today's antedating for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: "Terrestrial", for a (universal) language spoken on Earth, from 1944 to 1936. sfdictionary.com/view/2789/te...

Article o'the day: "The Legend of Ea-Naṣir": How a Babylonian Businessman Became an Internet Meme, in the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10...

Found on Threads; bringing it here so @jessesword.com and @korystamper.bsky.social and @skleinedler.bsky.social and @benzimmer.bsky.social get to enjoy.

Help transcribing some 18th century English? It's a recipe for Gingerbread (YUM) but the last few lines are inscrutable to me. My attempt at transcription is in the alt text, please let me know if you can help me with the end! I want to make some 18th century gingerbread!

New entry for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: "Uranian", for the language of Uranus. Had been jammed into the existing entry, but we upgraded it. From 1941 and still out there. We have a lot of demonyms and language terms in the pipeline. sfdictionary.com/view/3062/ur...

Etymology: "politicians are bloodsuckers suffering from face spasms!" (Apropos of nothing in particular.)

I used to fuck like that.

Had an intriguing editorial discussion recently: how did people in the past talk about 'minutes' when they didn't have watches or standardised times? How does that affect your thinking? Come down an Elizabethan/Jacobean rabbit hole with me. 1/

Please read this beautiful essay by Ruth Franklin on America: both the country, and the Simon & Garfunkel song. ruthfranklin.substack.com/p/empty-and-...

In another place, people were suggesting songs that reliably cheer you up, and in case anyone needs the perfect one, may I present Gil Scott-Heron's "Lady Day and John Coltrane": www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aRN...

Hello! We have a whopping _three_ new entries for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction, all pertaining to critters from Deneb. 1940s onwards, common '50s, now rarer, like many such terms. sfdictionary.com/view/2759/de... sfdictionary.com/view/2760/de... sfdictionary.com/view/3056/de...