Jessi Grieser
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jessgrieser.com
Jessi Grieser
@jessgrieser.com
Sociolinguist, novelist, photographer, quilter, saxophonist and Boglehead. Associate Professor of Linguistics at UMich.
Pinned
I’ve gotten a bunch of new followers of late. So hi; I’m a Black
Woman sociolinguistics prof at my alma mater, Univ of Michigan. I skeet social justice, linguistics, productivity, teaching, cats and dogs, and NCAA sportsball.

I contain multitudes.
Whoeee. My brain must’ve been putting off the LSA program task because it knew it was going to be bad. I thought CVent had personal schedules…
January 7, 2026 at 10:09 PM
Well, I guess that's what we're doing.

(Literally what I said aloud.)
January 7, 2026 at 4:32 AM
Discovered a new way around the "you showed up looking like a woman ergo $$$$" problem at the car place.

Me: I cracked this tailight loading an auger into my trunk. Can you give me an estimate?
Guy: You put an auger in a Prius? By yourself?
Me: Yep.
Guy: Get the part on ebay and look on youtube.
January 5, 2026 at 6:55 PM
Reposted by Jessi Grieser
If you’re a person that celebrates Epiphany, remember that the magi engaged in righteous civil disobedience when they took another road home and didn’t snitch to Herod. The lesson is that the right thing is often the opposite of what elected leaders want you to do.
January 4, 2026 at 7:14 PM
We have now implicated three flight attendants and one TSA agent in the Michigan sign stealing scandal.
January 3, 2026 at 3:12 AM
Statenfreude (n.) The state of taking pleasure in Ohio State’s misery.
January 1, 2026 at 3:53 AM
Me running into BYU fans at MCO:

“Sorry for taking your defensive coordinator! Thank you for the donation to our cause!” #goblue
December 28, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Y’all expecting that a coach would not be friends with a HC he worked with just because of OSU/M is actually OSU level ish.

Rise up. The difference between OSU and M is that they actually *don’t* live in our heads rent-free.
December 28, 2025 at 5:38 PM
A clutch business model would be a booth that sold little local goodies in attractive packages at the airport called “Thank You For Letting Me Stay”
December 28, 2025 at 4:08 PM
My 9 y/o nephew looking at a cybertruck:

“That looks like it’s still rendering”
What's an insult you'll never forget?
December 26, 2025 at 7:12 PM
There is really a surprising amount of PIN/PEN merger in northern KY.
December 26, 2025 at 4:17 AM
Reposted by Jessi Grieser
No one says to legit business owners, "hey I see there's an underground market selling toxic knock-offs of your product: how will you incorporate the toxic product AND protect your customers against its harms?" But apparently it's fine to make this suggestion to educators with respect to AI.
December 24, 2025 at 7:56 PM
:clears throat:

It still is not about how good the paper was no matter how much I agree with other scholars that in addition to being a transphobic attempt to get the TA fired it was also a bad piece of scholarship. A well-written and sourced essay would still have been bad.
As an actual Religious Studies scholar, it is an insult to our field to describe anything this student wrote about gender as "Bible-based."
cnn.com CNN @cnn.com · 17d
The University of Oklahoma has removed an instructor who was accused by a student of religious discrimination over a failing grade on a psychology paper in which she cited the Bible and argued that promoting a “belief in multiple genders” was “demonic.” https://cnn.it/4b6g3rd
December 24, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Okay the #FedEx truck just blew by here blasting the Home Alone soundtrack and that is inspired. A+.
December 22, 2025 at 9:07 PM
#Michiganbasketball has a starter whose name is “Tschetter” and we call him “cheese” and anyway I love phonology.
December 21, 2025 at 10:59 PM
I know I have typography nerds as well as DP syntax nerds in my followers. Please someone make a tiktok about each of these problems?
I’m currently outside of the Kennedy Center:
December 19, 2025 at 9:27 PM
I had a day yesterday where I knocked a giant thing out on each of the three legs of the stool and that felt really good.

1) Research: subbed an article
2) Teaching: submitted grades
3) Service: big milestone I shouldn't put on social media but which takes 8 hours to do every time
December 19, 2025 at 5:37 PM
As someone who is just far more often at health centers and hospitals these days, I remain absolutely astonished at how hard it often is to find a staircase in a health facility.

How many fewer people would need the doctor if our built environments encouraged us to move more?
December 19, 2025 at 3:17 PM
One hilarious side effect of NWAV is that we laminated the timing cards and I feel like I can't throw them away. So now I just have two sets of very nice timing cards in my backpack. Never know when you're going to have a talk moderation emergency arise. There's already been one so far.
December 18, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Goddangit. Why do I have to keep my senator on a leash. Let her out the back door for ONE second…
WHAT IN GOD'S NAME ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING? 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Again, this is why you simply can't take Mark Kelly seriously (bsky.app/profile/mcop...), and yet another reason why Elissa Slotkin (bsky.app/profile/mcop...) cannot be anywhere near the future of the Democratic Party.
16 Democratic senators joined Republicans in confirming a close ally of Elon Musk as head of NASA:

Baldwin
Cantwell
Durbin
Fetterman
Gallego
Gillibrand
Hassan
Heinrich
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
King
Schiff
Shaheen
Slotkin
Warner
December 18, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Reposted by Jessi Grieser
Meanwhile, while the far right is yelling that we're unqualified DEI, I've mentored many people from their demo who've become colleagues and friends.

How many people like me have they mentored?

Some of us are building a beloved community that includes everyone. They want to demand Gilead instead.
December 18, 2025 at 12:16 AM
One of my favorite things about all music in 2 or 4 is that no matter what it is you can throw The Victors in it somewhere.

#carolofthebells
December 17, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Reposted by Jessi Grieser
A study by @sashakillewald.bsky.social attributes 8% of the narrowing gender pay gap in the US to women having fewer children: “Increasing birth rates will tend to widen the pay gap, unless we find ways to reduce the motherhood wage penalty.” @umichstonecid.bsky.social news.umich.edu/births-down-...
Births down, wages up: U-M study links historic birth rate drop to closing gender pay gap
As the U.S. birth rate reaches historic lows in 2025, these declines fuel economic change as the year comes to an end. A University of Michigan study showed that low U.S. fertility has led to gains in...
news.umich.edu
December 16, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Car companies: we’re going to follow consumer demand and kill this thing that is important to the longevity of humankind

Tech companies: we’re going to create something you don’t want and don’t need and use up all your natural resources but convince you it’s the only way to the future, lol.
npr.org NPR @npr.org · 26d
Ford says it is "following the customer" in discontinuing its large electric pickup, which was well-received but never profitable. Ford will keep the Lightning name alive as a plug-in hybrid. n.pr/4pyLdvK
Ford pulls the plug on the all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck
Ford says it is "following the customer" in discontinuing its large electric pickup, which was well-received but never profitable. Ford will keep the Lightning name alive as a plug-in hybrid.
n.pr
December 16, 2025 at 12:34 AM
I regret to inform you that I think 6-7 is going to win #WOTY2025. It's just too bang on all the criteria.

I realize you do not want it to win.
I do not want it to win, either.
Nevertheless language gonna language.
December 15, 2025 at 11:29 PM