New Danger of Death format just dropped.

Ten years ago I was doing sociolinguistic interviews for my dissertation. One interviewee was a local historian and gave me some souvenirs, including this pristine 1998 calendar showing local historical places. Since calendars repeat every 28 years, I'm excited to be able to finally use it!

We survive difficult times by remembering to embrace the things that make us curious, the things that bring joy. There are amazing things happening beneath all the noise that has taken all the oxygen. Let the anaerobic joy of linguistics get some air.

Academics, who typically teach on nonadjacent days, could help push this movement! “Following up from what we started ereyesterday…” “Don’t forget the quiz at the end of class overmorrow!”

Desk rejected. 😑

If after 22 minutes, my brownies are still soup, you’ve given bad instructions. Don’t give me this “cooking times may vary due to oven temperatures” nonsense. It took 40 minutes for these to cook. That’s not because my oven might be off by a few degrees.

I heard a family at the park speaking with their kids in Portuguese. I also speak Portuguese. I don’t normally strike up conversations with other parents at the park and I don’t actually have anything to say. But I also support what they’re doing. What’s the etiquette in that situation?

I’ve got to stop assigning so many final papers during fall semesters. Between grading, prepping for LSA/ADS, and prepping three courses next semester, it’s looking like not much of a break for me. 🫠

My acting CV now has two lines on it.

In my Varieties of English course, I asked students to produce a podcast episode that explains a variety in depth instead of turning in a final paper. Not sure how stressful it was for them, but they are certainly more interesting and quicker to grade!

Ohhh, in Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, I think Mr Tunmus interpreted the phonetic r in “spare room” not as an onset r but as an intrusive r, which is why he thought Lucy said “Spare Oom.”

Seven months ago, I submitted a manuscript to a journal. No response yet, so I checked on it today. TURNS OUT I DIDN'T HIT THE SUBMIT BUTTON! Please send me all your facepalm gifs.

Not sure if it's because I'm getting old or if it's part of living in a desert, but when it snows now, my first thought is not "how pretty!" but rather, "oh, this'll be good for the snowpack."

Grading usually isn't fun, but sometimes it is.

One of my concerns is that without Google Scholar, I’ll end up as an echo chamber of only citing people I know or have seen get cited before. Google Scholar is how I discover new people, especially when writing about new (to me) ideas.

Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared

I just added "chair appointment" to my calendar. Not because I'm being appointed chair (goodness no!), but because I'm meeting with facilities to get a new chair.

My letters of recommendation almost always end up being the awkward length where the only thing on the second page is my closing and signature.

So turns out the reviews all come crashing back at really inopportune times of the semester. Note to self: maybe stagger my submissions next time.

One of these days, I should just try doing a road trip without pounding chips and soda all day and actually arrive at my destination feeling alright. But of course not *this* road trip.

Happy to share the first version of my textbook "Quantitative Data Analysis for Linguists in R". stefanocoretta.github.io/qdal/ Comments and suggestions welcome! (on the GitHub repo: github.com/stefanocoret...) The textbook takes you from 0 to basic stat modelling with Bayesian regression.

Since moving to Utah, I’ve tried to pause and appreciate the mountains at least once a day. Days like today make that easy.

I just wrote the word skedaddle for the first time ever.

We recently rediscovered “Hey, Arnold” and all FIVE of us enjoy it!

I think the reviewer found it ungrammatical. 🤷🏻‍♂️

If you have a regional accent, please never try to get rid of it. Accents tell stories.

As we approach #nwav53, my dictation is channeling its inner Labov. Here I said “copy” but my phone heard “coffee.”

Y'all know what to do!

I recently realized that this month is the twentieth (!) blogiversary of Arrant Pedantry. My posting frequency has been pretty bad the last few years as I've dealt with health problems, pandemic burnout, and regular burnout, but I wanted to mark the occasion by sharing some of my favorite posts.

I knew I was looking at AI-generated student work when the supposed linguistic data they were reporting on was normally distributed.

I put together this brief guide for myself to keep track of FORCE, NORTH, START, and (surprise!) CLOTH. It might be helpful for you too if you work with lower back prerhotic vowels. joeystanley.com/blog/north-f...

Does anyone else have a vowel quality distinction in "hearty"-"Hardy" or "carted"-"carded"? Like if the following consonant is voiceless, it's higher (and shorter)? To me, it's akin to the "writer"-"rider" or "cited"-"sided" thing that I and others have.

In "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream", I have vowel quality, vowel length, stress, and possibly aspiration differences going on (e.g. [ˈaɪ̯ ˌskɹiːm] vs. [ˈəˑɪ̯s.kʰɹiːm]). Like, the joke didn't even land for me as a kid. Are they truly homophonous for some people?

So I guess we’re just going to have to live with the super bright headlights then, huh?

I'm enjoying scrolling through TikToks of British comedians to finding the best videos to show in class and having that count as work.

The department of #CognitiveScience at @jhu.edu is seeking motivated students interested in joining our PhD program -- including #sociophonetics in my lab! Applications due 1 Dec; for those interested, we have an Application Mentoring Program thanks to current grads. See flyer for QR link.

After talking about density plots today, I moved on to violin plots and, in a genuine no-pun-intended moment, I said "plot twist: it's just a density plot turned on its side." It was hilarious. And then someone made this for me.

Maybe it’s because I literally do research for my job, but I hate the “[here’s some interesting thing I noticed] and that needs to be studied” trend on social media recently.

#Linguistics at the University of Georgia is hiring a tenure-track faculty member in #phonetics and #phonology. Spread the word and let me know if you have questions! linguistlist.org/issues/36/31...

It was SUCH AN HONOR to speak in the Michigan State University Linguistics Colloquium Series and hang out with their awesome faculty and students! Beautiful weather and beautiful campus! I forgot to take a decent photo of so here's an awkward one of me with a scoop of the Spartan Swirl ice cream.

Postdoc in #sociolinguistics jobportal.ku.dk/videnskabeli...

This is my first time teaching Varieties of English since the British Library cyberattack. I didn't realize how much I relied on it for audio. If anyone has recordings (or preferably, TikToks that I can download) featuring regional British accents, I'd love to get a copy.

It’s just free variation.

The box we use for our Halloween decorations is about 10 years old and I can tell because it’s an Amazon box that was originally sealed with Amazon Fire phone packing tape.

It’d be cool to have a Midwest grammar toggle and make this say “needs charged” instead.

✅ Submit tenure portfolio.

Every time I teach about surveys, I have students spend time in class making the worst survey imaginable. Fluorescent colors, random images, terrible question design. They LOVE it. And what they don't know is that they're learning a lot about how to make surveys in the process.

Footage of me getting my 7x7 cube in the mail today.

There’s an #nwav53 presentation about this!

10% of my students in one class (3/27) didn't know how to "right click" on their laptops.