yiddish has a verb (shmits, שמיצן) which means “to hit” but when it’s reflexive means “to be angry,” and so to ask why someone is mad in yiddish you can literally just ask “why are you hitting yourself”
AI speaks over 100 languages, so it must also be built for multilinguals, right? Well... I’m thrilled to share that @teapotlinguist.bsky.social (Freie Universität Berlin) and I just received Una Europa Seed Funding to investigate exactly this, across two countries and three languages 😍🌈
No longer content with pillaging intellectual work and dismembering our environment (already critically weakened), AI companies are now hellbent on destroying books galore including rare editions. Shut down these nefarious enterprises already.
AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare books
If you have retreated to physical books because the internet is too full of AI slop, bad news — now they’re shredding the books to feed their AI slop machines.
news.com.au
You can kill a French vampire with a baguette. It's a painstaking process but it works.
Our latest research (led by Sadie Barlow, with Dr Edoardo Manino) found LambdaG doesn’t need a calibration dataset for well-calibrated likelihood ratios, just a simple correction! This simplifies analysis and makes it the only authorship verification method without calibration. Paper on arXiv now.
LambdaG: A simplified approach to Authorship Verification
In our latest research, led by Sadie Barlow and with Dr Edoardo Manino, we discovered a very important property of LambdaG: it does not require a calibration dataset to produce well calibrated likelihood ratios. A simple correction is sufficient. This means that the analysis is significantly simpler to implement and explain. LambdaG is therefore also the only existing authorship verification method that does not require a calibration analysis to produce likelihood ratios. The paper, currently under review, is available on arXiv here:
andreanini.com
While it may seem obvious that writers of prose don't make use of rhymes and meter like poets do, it turns out Dutch prosaists actually seem to *avoid* meter in their sentences. At least iambic pentameter and hexameter (alexandrine) occur less frequently than expected by chance. Interesting!
Waarom vermijden prozaschrijvers regelmaat in klemtoon? neerlandistiek.nl/2026/07/proz...
Waarom vermijden prozaschrijvers regelmaat in klemtoon? neerlandistiek.nl/2026/07/proz...
Proza bestaat niet uit versregels
Waarom vermijden prozaschrijvers regelmaat in klemtoon?
neerlandistiek.nl
Einschränkungen der Rechte bei Krankheit, Armut oder Arbeitslosigkeit zeigen, dass der Staat den Bürger*innen misstraut. Einschränkungen der Informationsfreiheit sorgen dafür, dass Bürger*innen dem Staat misstrauen. So erodiert aus zwei Richtungen die Bindung zwischen Institutionen und Bevölkerung.
Kara Zor-El really should have an accent when she speaks English.
📣New post in our blog series 'Born Open' from @langscipress.bsky.social, a #OABook publisher in the field of linguistics. Hear what Sebastian Nordhoff had to say about navigating the issue of prestige & learn more about how LangSci operates 👉 tinyurl.com/OABooksN
Starmer saying the next PM will inherit a country that is 'fairer' than the one he inherited 2 years ago. In the one Starmer inherited, trans people could use public toilets.
My nine year old asked for a Rosetta Stone cake for his birthday
This year is the 50th anniversary of the standalone edition of The Word for World is Forest. This Berkley Medallion edition is from December 1976. Cover art by Richard Powers.
Also “take another shot at it.” Apologies to any L2 speakers within range today
today in cowboy language: "get back on the horse"
THIS IS THE WAY. Join libraries. They have managed to survive until we can realise the importance of them again. The time is now!
It took me a bit of time to do this but I have just joined my local library for the first time in about 30 because of this tidbit of information and I now have access to most of the above.
Drachenstarke Sendung von @transcript-verlag.bsky.social heute in der Post 🤩🐲 #Syntagma Hier geht's zur Web-Version 👉 www.utb.de/doi/book/10....
They’re called ‘academic journals’ because they’re where you write your private thoughts nobody else is allowed to read
This is true for Berlin (VÖBB) too btw
every time I say this, someone didn't know: you can get the NYRB, the New Yorker, the LRB, Paris Review, The Spectator (weirdly not New Statesman), The Week, both French & Italian Vogue & New Scientist among many many other magazines FREE via the Libby app from your local library?
every time I say this, someone didn't know: you can get the NYRB, the New Yorker, the LRB, Paris Review, The Spectator (weirdly not New Statesman), The Week, both French & Italian Vogue & New Scientist among many many other magazines FREE via the Libby app from your local library?
YOU’RE LISTENING TO SISYPHUS FM, THE HOME OF NON-STOP ROCK
As a science fiction writer I really fucking resent tech bros for ruining the phrase "artificial intelligence." 80 years of it being all about cool androids and interesting computers destroyed by five years of "Spicy autocorrect making everything shittier for money." NEVER FORGIVE.
wir helfen natürlich - wenn ihr uns auch unterstützen wollt... Momentan ist es wieder mal finanziell schwierig PCs für alle IBAN: AT75 2011 1842 7340 8500 www.pcsfueralle.at/s... Of course we'll help—if you'd like to support us too... Right now, we're in a difficult financial situation again