It’s always interesting to see from the parents’ chat who makes their teens share their phone location. Interesting in the sense that I would have guessed correctly

You saw the beautiful cover, you saw the table of contents. Now here's the introduction, in which I describe the contents of the book and explain how the language beat came about.

You may find yourself working in an office across the street from a building with a plaque that says Karl Marx lived there and you may one day hear (through the open window, becasue it's hot) the tour guide saying that in fact Marx did not live there and you may ask yourself

I‘ve been wrestling with this question of the relevance of linguistics to climate discussions, so I appreciated the introduction of this piece. But I wouldn’t single out Chomsky as the reason.

@thewaroncars.bsky.social this news seems significant, given that they say they'll focus on "heritage" activities--which don't include biking www.pressherald.com/2026/07/01/l...

Here’s the table of contents. Piece are arranged by theme, not chronologically, and themes are introduced briefly in each section.

An academic on another platform boasted his public facing work got 2 million readers. Cute! My Atlantic story on last words alone was read by a million people. Reach? I had some. Impact? That too. You get to read all of these pieces together in one place. Pick something. Start anywhere.

I’m one of the pioneers of the language beat, and this work makes me proud: It’s varied. I sold the ideas, and I got paid. I kept my standards. I aimed for accuracy. I read the journal articles. I did journalism, not PR. I didn’t cut corners for clicks.

Selling identities: The commercialization of #Mayan #culture globalvoices.org/2026/07/01/a... via @globalvoices.org #indigenous

For the European crowd (and the late night US West Coast folks): CHECK IT OUT! Later today I'll put the introduction up.

And in case you're wondering -- I still write about language. In fact, just today my piece on words on projectiles came out in ARC arcmag.org/shoot-me-a-t...

here you go (art was better than doomscrolling)

THE LANGUAGE BEAT is here. For more than two decades, I wrote reportage, profiles, essays, and reviews about language. This book, which collects some of those pieces, is on sale now: amzn.to/4aokz3c (I'll announce when it goes onto other platforms.)

Back on my bullsh

Who are you people who haven’t read Neuromancer, how do you grasp the whole world you live in

The most unpotted history you’ll find on words on bullet (casings) and bombs

I couldn’t shake this topic so wrote this piece. “Even though he’d written in permanent marker, the media kept using words like ’engraved’ or ‘carved’ or ‘inscribed,’ as if it wasn’t masculine enough to be shooting someone; a real shooter had to have hurt his bullets, too.“

Are you writing historical romance and wanting to get the religion right? Are you writing SFF and wanting to get the religion weird (but in a good way)? I'm offering a one hour consult via @romancingthevote.com www.32auctions.com/organization...

Add to your list of signs and wonders: Today on the train to Utrecht I sat next to a kid, maybe 10 or 11, who wrote in a little notebook and then wove one of those rubber band bracelets. Maybe the last kid in the world not to be consumed or pacified by a digital device.

If you like this sort of storytelling with data (some beautiful examples here!) please consider applying for the PhD fellowship in narrative data visualisation we're hiring for! Job ad here: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available... and examples of narrative datavis here pudding.cool/process/how-...

What the heck. Amazon link is added to my profile. More later.

I’ll be releasing the collection of my language journalism later today…first I have to get this talk out of the way.

Here’s a weird thought: “Turtles“ was James’s novel anaphoric shell noun for anaphoric shell nouns in general, so to translate the aphorism (and it‘s 2026, I think we can handle this), it’s anaphoric shell nouns all the way down

Will this change how people talk?!?

There are three relevant tech topics in academia right now: 1. generative AI 2. digital sovereignty 3. learning to use knowledge management tools Unfortunately 3 doesn't get enough oxygen, even though it overlaps with 2 and is an obvious antidote to the predations of 1

“Grammar” as metaphor makes its second appearance on here this year

"mRNA bad, peptides good" is the new "two legs bad, four legs good" insurrectionist slogan from Animal Farm

I was so-so on the LARB [insert personal backstory here] but then they went and published this searing thing lareviewofbooks.org/article/dang...

You could write a very good STS paper about the American discourse on European ACs…

China doesn't believe in science as a public good, either—it has a broadly science-based state capitalist system, which includes biomed. But the MAGA types see only war, hard power, strategic minerals, and manufacturing base. No room for biomed in that portfolio.

Looks like BlueSky accounts are pretty portable: following a tip from @olivia.science I've moved over to Eurosky: move.eurosky.tech Somewhat relatedly, I finally set up domain verification so my handle is simply @markdingemanse.net (the old handle should redirect to it)

Who are the dead to you "If you cannot smell it, you need only imagine these bodies—these millions murdered, maimed, and tortured—not as some distant casualties of 'necessary' realpolitik, but looking up, mangled in their graves, each bearing the face of your mother, your husband, your child."

It looks like what I predicted is exactly what is happening—the bias against writing deemed to be non-native has now shifted to bias against writing deemed to be AI generated with the same disproportional impacts on scholars from the Global South. blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

Happy belonging horror day

All this and more explained in The Language Beat, which will be on sale next week

"We publish micro-fiction in the format of the Research Abstract, to encourage imaginative writing in the academy, entirely for fun."

my article on gen AI and language change will be nothing like this crap

what is the email etiquette weather like today -- are we wishing people to be found well or not?

chasing trucks still more fun than catching trucks, in case any one's wondering, even though no truck no eat

"We publish micro-fiction in the format of the Research Abstract, to encourage imaginative writing in the academy, entirely for fun."

It’s a good day to say that Son of the Morning Star, by Evan Connell, is one of the best pieces of long-form nonfiction ever written in English

Elon Musk, briefly the world's first trillionaire, has a history of running companies that are especially dangerous for workers. Read @gaigedavila.bsky.social on the recent death of worker Jose Luis Bautista at "Starbase": www.texasobserver.org/worker-death...

All welcome!

I had a fascinating chat with a PhD student who uses Obsidian to organize things. I'm going to give it a try...it may be time to graduate from Scrivener.

who's the expert on speech communities out there? #langsky #language

The Kindle version of my first book, Um..., is on sale on Amazon for $4.99. Someone once called me the "father of umology." The book does something special: rather than taking a prescriptive line, it tells stories about people, situations, and processes that illuminate verbal blundering.

The point is that it's a HUGE PROBLEM that people running for office as Democrats are not talking about climate change, since — hello! — climate change remains very real and is accelerating. The time we have to halt heating at a safe level is almost over. 1/4

We're now recruiting two journalists (one permanent, one on a 6-12 month contract) to help us tackle online misinformation and debunk misleading claims on social media. Full details (including on salary) here 👇

'But archaeology can be of the living, not just of the dead, and this means it's inextricably linked with the future'. 🧪 🏺 🔭