Did an English Lang/Ling A Level and it was 100% the highlight of Sixth Form. By the end, my only option was to put off the teacher training a little bit longer to do 3 more years of it.
(Spoiler: Did not become a teacher, but I still spend a lot of time thinking about linguistics!)

Happy International Women's Day!
This shouldn't need to be said, but just in case it does, if your idea of feminism doesn't involve supporting women of colour, disabled women and queer (especially trans and intersex) women, then it's not feminism.

Accent discrimination is discrimination and it doesn’t matter who it’s aimed at. I’m always saddened at how people who would never say “I hate people from X country” are very happy to say “those people don’t speak good English”. It’s part of the same picture, but wow, no one wants to hear it.

Comic. PERSON 1: That movie was so good. Maybe even the greatest movie of all time question mark? PERSON 2: Yeah comma, but you said that about italics *Charlie’s Angels Colon: Full Throttle* period. Paragraph break. I question your judgement period. [caption] When people say “question mark” out loud as a rhetorical device, it always makes me want to say my other punctuation and formatting too.

Question Mark

xkcd.com/3143/

Title: Gender Census 2025. Text: If you can't easily put yourself into just one of these two boxes, you are invited to take part. Illustration: Two boxes, each with photos of relevant dictionary pages.

The 12th annual international Gender Census 2025 is now open until at least 30th August 2025!

survey.gendercensus.com

It's for anyone whose gender (or lack thereof) isn't described by the M/F binary. It's short and easy, and results are useful in academia, business and self-advocacy.

Semiotics.

While the Supreme Court ruled, I tore up a fence On being trans and living a life

Beautiful reflections on being in community and being in the world from Josie Giles.

"My sisters, please give all your love to each other and none of it to the state."

the only real answer to “what is a woman?” is “it’s complicated! but it’s the kind of complicated that the human brain is particularly good at handling with broad rulesets, noted exceptions, and allowances for overrides like self-identification”

Support resources for our trans friends and allies | Good Law Project At a time when anti-trans discrimination is rife and hate crime has reached record levels, it’s important to know what support is out there for trans, non-binary or gender-questioning individuals and ...

On what is a really difficult day, here are some resources for our trans friends and allies.

Solidarity 💜
goodlawproject.org/resource/sup...

The UK Supreme Court just capitulated to a sustained campaign of hatred and bigotry against trans folks (and, specifically, trans women).

It's ugly and wrong.

Trans women are part of the sisterhood, trans nb friends the comradeship, trans men the brotherhood. fuck bigots.

"Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairments in social interaction and repetitive behaviors. A key characteristic of ASD is a decreased interest in social interactions, which affects individuals' ability to engage with their social environment. This study explores the neurobiological basis of these social deficits.."

Yesterday I talked about some researchers being shocked that autistic researchers critique research work.
I note recent studies like this one.
Look how they describe us. It's not even correct. One of endless similar recent papers.
Would *you* like to be described like this?
Let's do better, eh.

Turns out I am very much not immune to linguistic-themed stationary.

This is the post that defines a generation…

Roses are redde
Noble are the manatees
Yf we wante a bettir future
Teach artes & humanityes

yes we've all heard about verbing words but you need to also be adverbing and so forth. for example i just produced "oh yeah that game has been manyfully recommended to me, i'm going to play it soon" and you know hwat, it's good. you can do whatever you want forever (linguistics edition)

Quadrant chart with the x axis showing bouba shape (left) and kiki shape (right) and the y axis bouba texture (top) kiki texture (bottom), filled in with labels in each quadrant: string cheese (top right), pretzel stick (bottom right), cheese puff ball (bottom left) and olive (top right).

Discussing salty snacks with @fbisnath.bsky.social, concluding that they can be categorized in two-dimensional bouba–kiki space. #iconicity #linguistics

Okay, buckle up bsky, it's time for the Tale of the Bunny Paper.

Here's the imported thread from twitter where the search all started:

bsky.app/profile/bets... (1/n)

Love it when you go out for dinner and get a free language lesson thrown in 🥰
#Langsky

The health and safety of trans youth in the UK has been sacrificed at the altar of conventional wisdom.

Because "everyone knows" these drugs were available too easily and won't let the facts get in the way.

Christmas songs as academic titles

Santa Claus is coming to town: the nuclear family as surveillance state

Rudolph the red nose reindeer: how labour value distorts interpersonal relations

We wish you a merry Christmas: interpellating figgy pudding as holiday melancholia

“How Ableism Impacts People Who Use AAC” Presentation by Dr. Lateef McLeod

“Anyone can be a victim of ableism if they do not follow societal norms that our culture sets for people’s bodies and minds. In fact, we need to realize how corrosive the oppression of ableism is on our culture & society.” From @communicationfirst.bsky.social:

communicationfirst.org/dr-lateef-mc...

It is never too late to start (or restart) masking against COVID!

I’d accept being mid if it meant that I was never stressed #linguistics

Considering I'm a tumblr user at heart and will vary rarely leave the 'Following' section of most websites, Starter Packs and Feeds on here have been a complete game-changer. So much easier to find interesting people and posts this way than searching different words and hoping for the best!

It concern me that teams are still imagining that five young autistic males with an intellectual disability reflect all autistic people.
What on earth lies behind that assumption?
Autistic people are of every gender, age, intellectual ability, ethnicity and all other factors.

Please do better.

It concerns me that we still have researchers publishing papers on the basis of asking 5 Mums.
This is 2024.
Autistic people can be asked for our own views.
Five is not a statistical sample.
Gosh.
Please consider the impact on autistic lives, when researchers claim we aren't capable of understanding

There's never a bad time to appreciate the impact Bob the Builder's Mambo No. 5 had on society.

Road sign: Elephants please stay in your car Comment: I didn't even know they could drive

New favourite example of structural ambiguity