As a kid, "Crazy English" by Richard Lederer was one of my favorite books!

I desperately want to know which building this is, and I'm also amazed that it isn't the anthropology building (which, being one of the oldest buildings on campus, consistently has bizarre problems).

The handshake meme. One arm is "Castilian Spanish speakers" and the other is "Indie pop singers," and their linked hands are "palatalizing /s/"

The Signs & Society "Chronotopes of Gender" special issue that @cat-tebaldi.bsky.social and I edited is finally in print! Check out all the fantastic articles: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I don’t know if anyone else notices or cares, but when I see a presentation in which the speaker uses obviously generated-AI images to illustrate their slides, it makes me immediately less confident in whatever other content they’re presenting.

Despite all of these factors which would lead to a lower jump, the low gravity would more than account for the differences. The following is a simple physics explanation of how to determine how high the highest high jump would be if it took place on Pluto: Assuming that what is constant is the amount of potential energy, mgh, which the jumper can create, then the height attained is inversely proportional to the acceleration of gravity on the planet's surface, g. Since g on Pluto is one sixth that of Earth, we can assume that the jumper would be able to jump six times as high on Pluto as on Earth. However, since the mass of the jumper on Pluto would be approximately doubled due to the mass of the spacesuit which he must wear to prevent his brain from dribbling out of his ears, and since h is inversely proportional to the total mass of the jumper, we can assume that the jumper would be able to reach a height three times that which would be attainable on Earth. Therefore, the highest jump ever, which is 2.45 meters, attained in 1993 by Javier Sotomayer, would be approximately 7.35 meters on Pluto. Of course, it would most likely be lower than that, due to problems discussed earlier in the paper.

It is impossible to predict the future, but you can pay someone $20 dollars to do it for you. (Photos of astronauts with high jump bars badly photoshopped into the background)

Then I did some actual physics calculations. And I concluded with some very compelling images.

I think we can safely assume that my gym teacher never actually read this paper, because I did not get referred to the school psychologist.

There are the obvious differences. Because Pluto is so far away from the sun, it would be very dark and very cold. It would be necessary to set up large stadium lights and heaters. Of course, the problem we run into here is where to plug these lights and heaters in. Surely there are outlets here and there, but are they connected to anything? Is there an electric company on Pluto? And even if there is, are the outlets polar or nonpolar? In addition, the atmosphere of Pluto is not safe for humans to survive in. Because of this, the competitors would have to compete in large, bulky, extremely heavy space suits. This would not only weigh them down considerably; it would interfere with the running and jumping motions as well. Also, the soles of the space suit boots are well over the regulation ½ inch thickness. This cannot be changed. If the soles were any thinner, it might result in a leak, which would result in your brains dribbling out of your head through your ears.

Pluto is a very small planet. There is very little gravity. This allows the jumpers to jump higher. However, it also affects the approach. The Fosbury Flop makes use of a J-shaped approach. You must run this approach swiftly, with long strides. With less gravity, you would have no trouble taking long strides, but since you fall back to earth more slowly after each step, you would not be able to run as fast. Therefore, you would not have as much momentum by the time you reached the pole, twisted your hip around the inside as your leading foot left the ground, and jumped up into the air. You would also a lot less maneuverability with the bulky suit on. The high jumpers on Earth can clear the bar with only millimeters between, but if you were wearing a space suit, it would be much easier to knock the bar down by accident. Also, there is always the risk of breaking your helmet and decapitating yourself when you land on your neck and upper back on the mat.

Of course, I then delved into specifics. If I had to write a paper about the high jump, then gosh darn it, I was going to incorporate actual information about the high jump.

The High Jump perhaps represents man's ascent into greatness. One second you are soaring through the air with the grace of an eagle, the next you are falling, a frenzy of arms and legs, and finally, you hit the ground like a sack of beans. It was Neil Armstrong who best summed up the symbolism of the high jump when he said, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Of course, as most anybody with half a brain knows, he said that when he became the first man to walk on the moon. Which leads me to wonder… What would the high jump be like if it were held on the moon? Better yet, Pluto?

Throughout history, scientists have been hard at work trying to improve the style of high jumping. Originally, there were a few styles that people used that attained relatively high jumps. The most popular was the scissors jump. However, the world of high jumping was changed for the better when Dick Fosbury invented the "Fosbury Flop," which involved twisting around when you reached the bar, and going over it with your back to the ground. When scientists grew tired of calculating parabolas and formulating how to attain the highest jump possible, they became restless and rowdy. They began rioting. They threw stones at old ladies on the sidewalk outside their lab. Finally, in an attempt to quiet the physicists, NASA assigned them a special project. This project: What would the high jump be like on Pluto?

In 9th grade, I got in trouble in gym class. We were doing a unit on the high jump, so I was told to write a two-page essay about the high jump. As someone who resented being assigned busywork, I went somewhat off the rails. Here are some excerpts from my paper.

First, I established a premise.

In New Orleans for AAAs! Looking forward to seeing how many different iterations of shrimp I can eat in the next three days. Also participating in this fantastic scholarly community etc etc

The final article in our special issue, by Max Yamane, is now available early! doi.org/10.1017/sas....

Two posts asking whether university administrators have thought about the consequences of purchasing and promoting AI for college campuses given a well documented college mental health crisis, and pointing out that university investment and endorsement may signal to students that dangerous technology is safe and beneficial

since chatgpt has coached another young person in a mental health crisis to their death, I am yet again tapping the sign

A Telegraph headline: "The Americanization of English reveals something dark about society." Subhed: "Many parents are happy to allow their children consume videos made by companies that have no obligation to care for them"

This seems like a SLIGHT overreaction to some British children saying the word "candy"

Aww, it was a joy to work with you!

Our (with @cat-tebaldi.bsky.social) introduction to the special issue is now available! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

NYTimes finally realizing that sometimes "women" isn't the most precise term for what you intend to refer to

A screenshot of a powerpoint slide with a bunch of examples of people judging the new "The Oval Office" sign taped to the White House exterior

I'm discussing the enregisterment of typefaces in class today, and usually I only talk about people's reactions to Comic Sans, but thanks to some fortuitous timing I have a new example.

I'm starting to realize I should have been a bit more strategic(!) in my use of "strategic" — I don't necessarily think it's a conscious decision on the part of individuals. It's strategic from the perspective of the ideology, I suppose?

And I wish I could have cited your article in mine! It's like The Gift of the Magi but for academics.

Also part of the special issue and now available:

@cat-tebaldi.bsky.social on tradwives doi.org/10.1017/sas....

@katrinadalythompson.com on Swahili-language Islamic marital advice doi.org/10.1017/sas....

Wei Wei and Alexandra Georgakopoulou on Chinese beauty influencers doi.org/10.1017/sas....

My new article "The Caveman in the Mirror: Masculinity and Paleofantasy" is now available via early access from Signs and Society! It's part of a special issue, "Chronotopes of Gender," that I coedited with @cat-tebaldi.bsky.social. Full issue will be out in December! doi.org/10.1017/sas....

A photograph of people holding protest signs in front of the Champaign County Courthouse

Urbana, IL

Chants of Sennaar is a very cool linguistics-y game, but with one thing that annoyed my semi-linguist self: one of the languages' syntax initially appears to be verb-first (VS), but then every other sentence is OSV, so I guess it's just... Yoda syntax?

Academic conference pro tip: if you're going to fully take a nap for an entire panel — like, head tipped back, feet up on the seat in front of you — maybe don't sit in the third row.

Pinocchio sings that he has no strings to “hold him down,” but given that he was a marionette, the strings would technically be holding him UP. Are we to understand this as a purely metaphorical use of “down,” or is there dramatic irony here, wherein Pinocchio misperceives that which animated him as that which held him back?

I can't actually justify including this in the book chapter I am currently writing, so I'll just put it here instead.

Also: "Not great, Bob"; "That's rough, buddy" (I was not familiar with that one but my students were); and even Jack Nicholson's reappropriation of "Here's Johnny!"

Something my students and I realized today, discussing Spitulnik's Zambian radio catchphrase article: a lot of the famous media phrases that have been taken up in American discourse ("Houston, we have a problem"; "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore") are examples of dramatic understatement.

The table of contents for the special issue of Discourse Studies "Scaling Stories"

Here's the table of contents:

Discourse Studies - Volume 27, Number 2 Table of contents for Discourse Studies, 27, 2

My special issue on narrative and scale, coedited with @mkoven66.bsky.social and @sabyperri.bsky.social, is officially out! journals.sagepub.com/toc/DIS/curr...

A cropped segment of the previously posted screenshot, showing that the original post tagged "Steven Pinker and 9 others"

😐

Scoop: State Dept. to use AI to revoke visas of foreign students who appear "pro-Hamas" The effort includes AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders' social media accounts and marks a dramatic escalation in the U.S. government's policing of foreign nationals' cond...

This should terrify every person in this country. The use of machine learning systems to approximate an individuals views on war and then, if they are here lawfully on a visa, tag them for deportation is about as sci-fi dystopian as it gets.

www.axios.com/2025/03/06/s...