Joe McVeigh
@eviljoemcveigh.bsky.social
I'm a linguist & sr lecturer at Metropolia Uni. PhD in linguistics and marketing. I like #language & #linguistics, hockey, baseball and comic books - but maybe not in that order :) https://eviljoemcveigh.com
Ok, beers drank. Sauna heated. Sun... not set! Hyvää juhannusta, kaverit. Let's dunk on some bad linguistics. You probably already know this op-ed is lazy and stupid. But why is it lazy and stupid? I’m glad you asked! bsky.app/profile/theg...
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2mo agoThe hill I will die on: I really don’t like ‘like’ – or other imprecise and redundant speech | Louis de Bernières
How many seconds into an interview with this guy until he uses "like" or any of the other words he's blaming everyone else for? 🙄 I'm guessing under 10. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The hill I will die on: I really don’t like ‘like’ – or other imprecise and redundant speech | Louis de Bernières
Junk speak, like junk food, encourages verbal littering. It has to be one of the worst things about life in Britain, says author Louis de Bernières
theguardian.com
Researchers using corpus-based approaches to the study of English: Welcome to the ICAME48 conference in Helsinki in May 2027! Follow our BlueSky account @icame48.bsky.social and our website (see the link in comments) for updates. The CfP will soon be published. #ICAME48
The whole “restoring trust in higher ed” discussion falters in precisely the same way as Dems’ “if we listen, do good governance, and take the high road, we’ll win them over.” No you won’t. You can’t. You’ve misdiagnosed the nature of their “distrust.” 1/
Latest book review from our puppy and it's a savage one
Tangentially related to this, there is a huge written language bias in linguistics. And (almost) no one talks about it. Probably because it's terrifying to even think about.
Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 2mo agoThis keeps coming up in my spaces as a phenomenon, so I'm sharing this antidote here for others too... > Worship of the written word includes erasure of the wide range of ways we communicate with each other and all living things. www.whitesupremacyculture.info/worship-of-w...
Academic research also means spending a year writing 15,000+ words, then cutting it down to 8,000 (which is still 1,000 too many?) & publishing it just so you can have an article that you can cite in the research that you originally set out to do because that study didn't exist when you started.
Liz Faber@lizwfab.bsky.social · 2mo agoAcademic research means reading 1 article, which leads you to a book and 6 other articles, which lead you to 17 articles and 4 book chapters, and oops now you’re an expert in the 1990s feminist criticism of Taylorist management philosophy, a thing you didn’t know existed until 3 days ago.
I'm reading that social media linguistics book and I probably won't finish it. Many yikes. And big ones too.
I'm so fucking furious. So, here's my podcast in a podcast app, which now has this nice "show transcript" button Perhaps it's taking you to our free, high quality transcripts that we PAY A HUMAN to make? Absolutely not. 🧵
Lingthusiasm@lingthusiasm.com · 2mo agoNot really an audio person but think linguistics is neat? All Lingthusiasm episodes have high-quality, human-made transcripts, with proper nouns and examples in other languages spelled correctly! (Okay, no guarantees the typo gremlins have NEVER crept in but if they have they've done so honestly)
Real question: the fuck do you guys think the word meant before
The New York Times@nytimes.com · 3mo ago“Whimsy” is having a moment, thanks to Gen Z and some millennials who have recast the word to characterize a lifestyle that blends playfulness, spontaneity and being present.
Have you read Beowulf? No you haven't. And especially not like this. Well, you fucking should. Or anyway the fight between Beowulf and Grendel, which is short enough that you'd get through it. @sesquiotic.bsky.social brings it to you. stronglang.wordpress.com/2026/05/19/w...
Wolf-boy versus Grinder (the Bow Valley Beowulf)
tl;dr: I’ve translated the intro to Beowulf and the fight scene between Beowulf and Grendel into modern rural Western Canadian English, complete with lots of rude language. Why? Beca…
stronglang.wordpress.com
Oh wow You're gonna wanna make sure you put this patch on the right way. Which is up to you to decide. I ain't judging.
This is a bad look from Helsinki University. They are straight marketing AI use to doctoral students with some shady webinar. None of the "distinguished panelists" are named in the email. The presumption is that everyone is using the plagiarism machine. B/c this text is from marketers, not scholars.
Thinking today about when I first read these lines from Shakespeare and thought... "Hey, those are GWAR lyrics!"
Flyers Fans Not Sure Whether Gritty Supposed To Be Eating Live Bird https://theonion.com/flyers-fans-not-sure-whether-gritty-supposed-to-be-eating-live-bird/
What's the most Philly sports comment you have? I'll start. Rescheduling a kidney stone removal to go to a game. #GoFlyers
I'm happy to say that the kids on bluesky are talking about how "Porter Martone" sounds in a Philly accent (aka hoagie mouth). And you know it sounds great. Go Flyers.
Finally! I got a comment from a reviewer telling me that I should have my article proofread by a native speaker. Or someone specialized in academic English. And all for a typo in the word #linguistics!!! I feel like I won a prize.
I love when I hear the origin of a word and then I look it up and the dictionary is like "definitely maybe" 🤷♂️
In 2019, I defended my PhD on 'It's not X, it's Y' and similar constructions, which I call contrastive negation constructions. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that 'It's not X, it's Y' would become the topic of comment pieces in newspapers. 🧵
ChatGPT’s latest stylistic quirk is sinister, infuriating – and absolutely everywhere | Stuart Heritage
Once you start noticing “it’s not X, it’s Y” as you scroll online, you can’t fail to register it. I’ve become so hypervigilant that it has seeped into my subconscious thoughts
theguardian.com
I had some students use an image from They Live in a presentation today. This is a blatant attempt to bribe me into giving them a good grade. And I am totally ok with it. A+, everyone. Keep up the good work.
My university's administration, in their great and infinite wisdom, has decided to cut the library. And librarians. I wish I was making this up.
The most expensive and volatile substance on Earth?? You mean men's emotions?
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 4mo agoTransporting the most expensive and volatile substance on Earth – podcast
