Encountered a commemorative bust of Tommy Douglas, father of Canadian Medicare, in a miscellaneous tourist cafeteria in Scotland of all places—apparently he was born in Falkirk!
Bronwyn
@bron.bsky.social
Linguist, reader, knitter, video gamer, Canadian (in no particular order). Thinks a lot about auxiliaries and pronouns, Stardew Valley, and books with magic and/or spaceships and/or kissing in them. Experimenting with context collapse. (she/her)
If you’ve seen this article, you may be sitting with anger, pain, or just exhaustion at dealing with another helping of colonial nonsense. We feel a responsibility to speak back when these colonizing narratives show up, yet again, in such a prominent venue. endangeredlanguages.com/story/respon...
The New Yorker@newyorker.com · 2w agoThe idea that we have a special duty to prevent the death of languages is instantly compelling to anyone who loves languages. But is it true? www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Without a doubt, the greatest (not greatest) part of taking a red-eye flight now that I am no longer a Youth is how all the systems of my body stage a revolt upon arrival.
Cities dismantled their tram networks to become “motor cities of the future”. The result? You could travel further within 30 mins via public transport in 1957 than you can in 2026. Cities are seeking billions to rebuild networks. Incredible piece of work this.
The Exchange@theexchangeleeds.bsky.social · 2w agoIf you stood on Briggate at 8am on a weekday in 1957, and stood there again in 2026, in which year could you reach more of the city in half an hour? Samuel Bancroft has crunched the numbers. Since the 1950s, Leeds has got bigger - but the city has effectively shrunk.
There's a reason Elon Musk rarely does interviews with real news outlets.
Elon Musk Melts Down Over Perfectly Normal Questions in Wild New Interview
"Maybe some people do loathe me. And that's probably true. I don't care," said Musk.
gizmodo.com
The thing in this story that strikes me is how his neighbor and the consul chose to save his life. They decided to do the right thing when you know the government is trying to murder somebody. I think about these unnamed people in survivor stories all the time -- they're everywhere. They can be us.
Justin Sherin@wychstreet.bsky.social · 2w agoBilly Wilder's birthday. I'll re-tell the story of why we have those movies. The Gestapo was after him. His neighbour tipped him as he came home one night; in 20 minutes he threw things into a bag, fled to Paris on the night train. He made a movie there, sold a story to Hollywood.
Friends! I have a Covid-prevention question. I seem to remember that there is some evidence for a prophylactic antihistamine regimen. Is this correct? If so, does anyone have information about which antihistamines and what dose? TIA!
“I had time to run home and pack a bag and get to the beach where the boats were waiting,” said a member of Namaygoosisagagun First Nation (Collins). “We literally had minutes to get on the boats and flee before it took our town.”
Namaygoosisagagun First Nation in northern Ontario surrounded by wildfire as members flee in boats — APTN News
'We literally had minutes to get on the boats,’ says member of the community.
apple.news
Update: I now have a speckled red flush on basically all the skin revealed by a Victorian off-the-shoulder gown. Cause remains unknown, but tentatively narrowed to either (a) a 48-hour delayed reaction to a peach+pear sparkling beverage, or (b) a hairstylist vigorously dusting hair off my neck.
Bronwyn@bron.bsky.social · 4w agoWhoo, nothing like getting ready to leave for a week in the woods and suddenly getting a Mysterious Rash (tm).
Whoo, nothing like getting ready to leave for a week in the woods and suddenly getting a Mysterious Rash (tm).
Sometimes I think about putting together a blog post or video series giving junior academics advice on public speaking.
Friends, I have tripped over a linguistics-themed umbrella! It could more felicitously be labelled a "writing systems" umbrella, but you know, I'll take what I can get. cognitive-surplus.com/collections/...
Linguistics Umbrella
There are around 7,139 known languages around the world, and while they all have a word for "wet," that doesn't mean you have to be! These eco-umbrellas have canopies made from 100% recycled soda bott...
cognitive-surplus.com
So, um, it turns out that the single biggest contributor to me sleeping better is wearing earplugs, and I am now feeling extremely silly about how much I resisted wearing them until now.
...wait, is "syntagmatic" (a word I always have to look up) just an old version of "syntactic", with the x/g alternation you see in pairs like "rex"/"regnum"?
Both my phone and my wallet have returned to me! I cannot describe the relief
Bronwyn@bron.bsky.social · last mo.I am currently missing BOTH my phone (accidentally left behind before I got on a plane a week ago, currently in the mail back to me) AND my wallet (location unknown), and let me tell you this makes modernity a real challenge.
I am currently missing BOTH my phone (accidentally left behind before I got on a plane a week ago, currently in the mail back to me) AND my wallet (location unknown), and let me tell you this makes modernity a real challenge.
The @cdnhistoryehx.bsky.social thread about Canadian currency reminded me about the fantastic Birds of Canada series. The $5 was BEKI! #birds
Canadian History Ehx@cdnhistoryehx.bsky.social · 2mo agoIn 1986, as part of the Birds of Canada series, the obverse side continued to feature Sir John A. Macdonald. On the reverse side, the bill featured an Eastern Osprey. Since 1994, it has been the provincial bird of Nova Scotia. 🧵 4/9
Nothing like visiting Vancouver close to the solstice to remember how much further north it is than other places I've lived.
english isn't for cowards. if you're not saying 'torpify,' that's a skill issue. there's no Académie Française telling you what to do. if you try to type 'pallific' and freak out when you see a little red underline, maybe you're not ready to roll with the big dogs.
Just learned that Canadians are included in new UK requirements for a 20£ "electronic travel authorization" for tourist visits and I am OUTRAGED on behalf of all commonwealth citizens.
Someone actually did a study a while back that showed the most effective way to get women out of TERF groups wasn’t people trying to change their minds, it was them getting literally any benign hobby, like learning other languages or taking up needlework
Patrick Wyman@patrickwyman.bsky.social · 2mo agoYou know who isn't getting radicalized? Guys who do ships in a bottle. Embrace model-building and avoid the pitfalls of right-wing extremism
Ugh reviewing proofs is so boring, I deeply resent that this is one of the many tasks downloaded to authors by for-profit academic publishers
Wikipedia tells me that "portmanteau" means "blend" (like "brunch" or "smog"), but am I hallucinating that in morphology we also use it for affixes that combine, say, tense and agreement, when you can't (easily) divide those into smaller pieces?
Subscribing to @theonion.com in print for one year for $99 was an A+ decision, the satirical ads alone have been worth it for me. If you have the funds to spare, I recommend it.
I thought I'd get maybe 25 replies to this request and use two or three of them. We're now at 1400. The column, which is 4600 words long (blame yourselves), is finished, but this thread should be studied by future historians. No era has ever been as utterly annoyed, as molecularly fed up, as we are
Brian Phillips@brianphillips.lol · 2mo agoI'm working on a column about the tech annoyances that drive us crazy, and I want it to be as universal as possible, so tell me yours! E.g. scanning a QR code to read a menu, never receiving the one-time passcode they supposedly texted you, "verify you're human" by IDing tiny motorcycles, etc.