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The Layman's Linguist

@laymanslinguist.bsky.social

Fun facts, exhaustive etymologies, & informative infographics for both linguists & laypeople

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The Layman's Linguist@laymanslinguist.bsky.social · 10mo ago

I don't know if a loud and proud Anglo-German should be gleefully mocking ANYONE for having to live under an ultra-right-wing leader rewriting the law to suit his own plans while our most vulnerable populations simply suffer and die without proper medical attention. Or is that too on-the-nose?

Chris Kendall@ottocr.at · 10mo ago

I thought about writing something snarky like now you have tea towels and crepe pans how about also trying the rule of law and universal health care but that would be insensitive

SeneB@megcolleu.bsky.social · 10mo ago

I would also argue that, because it's generic, you'll easily find "bark" in situations unrelated to dogs. Like I've heard people bark at others, but not really woof. So woof is more dog specific I think

The Layman's Linguist@laymanslinguist.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Just one linguist's opinion: <WOOF> is specifically a deep booming type of bark <BARK> is the general term and thus includes woofs but also all other kinds of barks—not whines or yelps. It's also more likely to be the verb: eg, "the dog barks" > "the dog woofs" See: their respective etymologies

(screenshot of a tweet with the following text:) Andrew Nad... @TheAndrewNa... Please settle this debate: Are “bark” and “woof” supposed to signify different sounds or are they interchangeable? They sound nothing alike, but there’s only one dog sound, right? It’s like if we had 2 words for a cow’s sound and one was “moo” and the other was “snarf”. 8:32pm 24 Oct 25 1536 viewsbark(v.1) "utter an abrupt, explosive cry" (especially of dogs), Middle English berken (c. 1200), bark (late 15c.), from Old English beorcan "to bark," from Proto-Germanic *berkan (source also of Old Norse berkja "to bark"), of echoic origin. Related: Barked; barking.woof(n.2) low, gruff dog-bark noise, by 1839 (wuff is by 1824); as a verb by 1804, wouff; echoic. Related: Woofed; woofing.
Eb@ebthen.bsky.social · last yr.

Going to try again because I think this maybe wasn't enough. Let's go back to the start again. Alt text was introduced to HTML in 1993 for situations where images didn't load or loaded slowly. In those situations the alt text is visible in the space where the image would have loaded. Example:

Bluesky post with the post text "a wild turtwig appears" and two images, one which has loaded properly and one which has not. Both images have ALT badges that indicate they have alt text. In the space of the image that has not loaded, the alt text "horsfield tortoise in a turtwig costume facing the camera" is visible instead.
Eb@ebthen.bsky.social · last yr.

I'm going to try to explain about alt being HTML and why what WHATWG says about it Really Matters. So, yes, the alt attribute is HTML. And what goes into that attribute is text. This is what it looks like when you want to find alt text on a traditional website: Source: webaim.org/techniques/a...

Screenshot of HTML. An img (image) tag inside of a p (paragraph) tag. The img tag has three attributes: src (source), which links to the image file, alt, which contains the text "example image" and width, which contains the number "200".
The Layman's Linguist@laymanslinguist.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Quick accessibility question: This is the first video I've posted to BlueSky and I definitely made sure to add a description and captions under alt text but I don't see an "alt" button to view them like on photos. Am I missing something obvious or is there an accessibility feature I'm missing?

The Layman's Linguist@laymanslinguist.bsky.social · 10mo ago

TikTok creator and indigenous activist Che Jim has been sharing a lot of informative videos recently of isolated petroglyphs (some practically inaccessible) around the US Southwest and I really recommend checking them out! Here's a fun one just for chuckles:

The Layman's Linguist@laymanslinguist.bsky.social · 10mo ago

TikTok creator and indigenous activist Che Jim has been sharing a lot of informative videos recently of isolated petroglyphs (some practically inaccessible) around the US Southwest and I really recommend checking them out! Here's a fun one just for chuckles:

Dominic Watt@domwatt.bsky.social · 10mo ago

I don't suppose anyone who claims it's hard to say /md/ in the name 'Mamdani' would say that the same sequence in, for example, 'someday' or 'Camden' is difficult, but I take the point. (You don't use your tongue to make an /m/ sound, for what it's worth, but again I take the point).

The Layman's Linguist@laymanslinguist.bsky.social · 10mo ago

A critical takeaway from this: "Existing large language models have instead shown a 'sycophantic' tendency to produce outputs that favorably reflect a human request. […] They are 'not going to produce the level of conflict and diverse perspectives that are required for really pathbreaking work.'"

Jeffrey Brainard@jeffreybrainard.bsky.social · 10mo ago

A human reviewer's take on an AI-written paper: 'Technically correct but neither interesting nor important.' Yesterday's first-of-its-kind #Agents4Science conference, where all papers were written and reviewed by #AI, considered their promise, limitations @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

👁️🍄🪸@bloomfilters.plus · 10mo ago

i genuinely recommend playing games in languages you want to learn - it's a really good way to get your mind around the linguistic logic of another language with lots of reading and some decisions!

The Layman's Linguist@laymanslinguist.bsky.social · 12mo ago

I'm reading a book on animal thought & emotion and it delves a lot into both inter- and intra-species communication. The current chapter is on the dreaded theory of mind and I would like to hear y'all's opinions on which, if any, of these would constitute evidence of ToM:

Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Bisexual of the Blade (Alt-text or DIE)@shengokai.blacksky.app · last yr.

Every 4th of July, I take the time to read "What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July." Let us begin: "I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us."

(1852) Frederick Douglass, "What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July"

Explore the speech "What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July" delivered by Frederick Douglass in 1852, including full text and historical context.

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