Prescriptivism Must Die!
@mgrammar.bsky.social
Psycholinguist, and the guy who used to write Motivated Grammar. He/him.
Erstwhile blogger: https://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com
Prosecute ICE and send Homan to the Hague.
Erstwhile blogger: https://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com
Prosecute ICE and send Homan to the Hague.
I'm never going to try to enforce my language use norms, but I have to say, the US got these two right.
tired: UK-USA conflict over the word "biscuit"
wired: UK-USA conflict over the word "flapjack"
wired: UK-USA conflict over the word "flapjack"
November 24, 2025 at 6:38 PM
I'm never going to try to enforce my language use norms, but I have to say, the US got these two right.
Sorry for a possibly goofy thread, but... There is a bad habit within American politics of saying "aha! but the thing you want would mean our government no longer adheres to the precise definition of the category I have chosen for it". Take it from a linguist: words do not matter more than ideas.
Federalism, by definition, does not care about giving votes equal weight, it cares about balancing the power among members of the federal union.
American schools *do* teach civics, but everyone flunks it now
American schools *do* teach civics, but everyone flunks it now
This is the definition of the slippery slope fallacy.
Arguing that votes should be given equal weight regardless of geography does not equate to arguing that states should not exist.
Arguing that votes should be given equal weight regardless of geography does not equate to arguing that states should not exist.
November 22, 2025 at 6:51 AM
Sorry for a possibly goofy thread, but... There is a bad habit within American politics of saying "aha! but the thing you want would mean our government no longer adheres to the precise definition of the category I have chosen for it". Take it from a linguist: words do not matter more than ideas.
Reposted by Prescriptivism Must Die!
YES the cake has THUMB TABS
November 18, 2025 at 7:35 PM
YES the cake has THUMB TABS
Reposted by Prescriptivism Must Die!
Leading up to NYC’s election, politicians launched a barrage of racist claims against Zohran Mamdani. Mainstream media outlets have barely covered it.
@ahjohnson.bsky.social reports on the Islamophobic vitriol, threats of deportation, & virtually no coverage.
@ahjohnson.bsky.social reports on the Islamophobic vitriol, threats of deportation, & virtually no coverage.
Why is Mainstream Media Ignoring Overtly Racist Attacks on Mamdani from Congressional Republicans?
Non-stop Islamophobic vitriol, threats of deportation, and virtually no coverage from CNN, NBC, CBS, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post.
inthesetimes.com
November 15, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Leading up to NYC’s election, politicians launched a barrage of racist claims against Zohran Mamdani. Mainstream media outlets have barely covered it.
@ahjohnson.bsky.social reports on the Islamophobic vitriol, threats of deportation, & virtually no coverage.
@ahjohnson.bsky.social reports on the Islamophobic vitriol, threats of deportation, & virtually no coverage.
In a rotten world, you have to take your victories where you can. It's gotta feel great for the staff of the Harvard Crimson to be threatened by Larry Summers on November 10 and then get to publish an expose on his emails to Jeffrey Epstein three days later.
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
November 14, 2025 at 5:27 PM
In a rotten world, you have to take your victories where you can. It's gotta feel great for the staff of the Harvard Crimson to be threatened by Larry Summers on November 10 and then get to publish an expose on his emails to Jeffrey Epstein three days later.
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Reposted by Prescriptivism Must Die!
This article on designing services to be digital by default focuses rightly on older people, but it has implications for us all www.thejournal.ie/readme/opini... #accessibility
Opinion: We’ve grown far too comfortable excluding older people from the digital world
As more of our lives move online by default, digital ageism has quietly become one of the last unchallenged prejudices, writes Fiona Daly.
www.thejournal.ie
November 13, 2025 at 8:38 AM
This article on designing services to be digital by default focuses rightly on older people, but it has implications for us all www.thejournal.ie/readme/opini... #accessibility
I had trouble parsing this headline: "Oil and gas demand to rise for 25 years without global change of course", and it's a nice demonstration of a weird thing about how we interpret #language and #grammar.
🤡OIL DEMAND WILL KEEP RISING🤡
What are the IEA assumptions that make rising oil demand so improbable?
What are the IEA assumptions that make rising oil demand so improbable?
November 12, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Reposted by Prescriptivism Must Die!
The far right is obsessed with Lord of the Rings and Musk keeps posting about "hobbits" because modern scientific racism owes more to fantasy worlds and gaming systems than genetic science, and they see both as effective mediums for right-wing propaganda www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Why Elon Musk Needs Dungeons and Dragons to Be Racist
The fantastical roots of “scientific racism”
www.theatlantic.com
November 11, 2025 at 2:42 PM
The far right is obsessed with Lord of the Rings and Musk keeps posting about "hobbits" because modern scientific racism owes more to fantasy worlds and gaming systems than genetic science, and they see both as effective mediums for right-wing propaganda www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
This is what my self-doubt tells me in my darker moments, browbeating me that all my unhappiness is the result of being around myself all the time. If anyone, let alone Joyce Carol Oates, said this about me, I would never leave the house again. I'm glad she said it about Elon Musk instead.
![Joyce Carol Oates quoting a tweet that says “wherever he [Elon Musk] goes, he wants to leave”:
"wherever he goes, he wants to leave"-- that's because when he gets there, he has brought his own self along; & whatever club he's invited to join has been devalued by the invitation.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:buy3qvqcj3o76leo6ap7pn2p/bafkreifilfbsxemfsambf4kqwolr24ld2ekqcrz4ybgv3bv7kzi5e6kppm@jpeg)
November 11, 2025 at 3:18 AM
This is what my self-doubt tells me in my darker moments, browbeating me that all my unhappiness is the result of being around myself all the time. If anyone, let alone Joyce Carol Oates, said this about me, I would never leave the house again. I'm glad she said it about Elon Musk instead.
Reposted by Prescriptivism Must Die!
I received this email about Democrats caving to end the shutdown from one of the SNAP recipients I spoke to:
November 10, 2025 at 2:17 PM
I received this email about Democrats caving to end the shutdown from one of the SNAP recipients I spoke to:
I just accidentally referred to the washing machine as a "laundry machine" while talking to our cat (identifying the noise in the next room for her). I'm trying to figure out whether that's an acceptable term in my lexicon and I'm not sure. Anyone use (or know someone who uses) "laundry machine"?
November 9, 2025 at 10:47 PM
I just accidentally referred to the washing machine as a "laundry machine" while talking to our cat (identifying the noise in the next room for her). I'm trying to figure out whether that's an acceptable term in my lexicon and I'm not sure. Anyone use (or know someone who uses) "laundry machine"?
Gender-inclusive language is good. It's been around forever. Language changes constantly, including due to societal norms. And if Stock's concerned about mistreatment of "pregnant women", she oughtn't accept being interviewed by a guy who was arrested for assault against his pregnant girlfriend.
Sing along kids: At the top level, the business of the British press is recruiting crackpots and wingnuts to attack and stomp on people their staff despise and want to harm. There is seldom any higher or more noble purpose at work.
November 8, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Gender-inclusive language is good. It's been around forever. Language changes constantly, including due to societal norms. And if Stock's concerned about mistreatment of "pregnant women", she oughtn't accept being interviewed by a guy who was arrested for assault against his pregnant girlfriend.
This is one of the funniest misdisambiguations I've ever seen.
(Also, is "misdisambiguation" a word in anyone else's lexicon?)
(Also, is "misdisambiguation" a word in anyone else's lexicon?)
November 8, 2025 at 2:09 AM
This is one of the funniest misdisambiguations I've ever seen.
(Also, is "misdisambiguation" a word in anyone else's lexicon?)
(Also, is "misdisambiguation" a word in anyone else's lexicon?)
Reposted by Prescriptivism Must Die!
Cornell agreed to pay $30m, hand over admissions data with demographic breakdowns, produce annual "campus climate" surveys to check on antisemitism and changes "since October of 2023," and—here's the dumbest part they agreed to—that the govt can open new investigations whenever it wants.
Appeasers.
Appeasers.
Cornell has reached an agreement with the federal government to restore our funding:
statements.cornell.edu/2025/2025110...
statements.cornell.edu/2025/2025110...
An agreement to restore Cornell’s federal research funding | University Statements | Cornell University
statements.cornell.edu
November 7, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Cornell agreed to pay $30m, hand over admissions data with demographic breakdowns, produce annual "campus climate" surveys to check on antisemitism and changes "since October of 2023," and—here's the dumbest part they agreed to—that the govt can open new investigations whenever it wants.
Appeasers.
Appeasers.
When people propose AI systems that are obviously both biased and absurd, I always wonder: do the proposers think AI can't be biased, or do they just think the rest of us think that? They're stupid, or they're evil, or they're both.
The problem with phrenology wasn't that it didn't use computers!
The problem with phrenology wasn't that it didn't use computers!
bro are you fucking kidding me
November 6, 2025 at 11:14 PM
When people propose AI systems that are obviously both biased and absurd, I always wonder: do the proposers think AI can't be biased, or do they just think the rest of us think that? They're stupid, or they're evil, or they're both.
The problem with phrenology wasn't that it didn't use computers!
The problem with phrenology wasn't that it didn't use computers!
Reposted by Prescriptivism Must Die!
Jury nullification is good and it's a good sign for America's path out of authoritarianism that juries are recognizing their power to nullify.
November 6, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Jury nullification is good and it's a good sign for America's path out of authoritarianism that juries are recognizing their power to nullify.
Reposted by Prescriptivism Must Die!
Last week, a unemployed Texan barred from getting a job in his field by a noncompete agreement stepped up to intervene in the federal lawsuit and defend the FTC's ban on noncompetes that Trump's FTC won't. @whitneycwimbish.bsky.social talked to Ric Davidson about his story & why he decided to fight.
Texan Takes On Corporate Abuse as Trump’s FTC Abandons Workers - The American Prospect
Ric Davidson’s motion to defend the federal ban on noncompete clauses would force the FTC to undertake a formal process to roll it back, not just quietly suffocate it in the dead of night.
prospect.org
November 6, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Last week, a unemployed Texan barred from getting a job in his field by a noncompete agreement stepped up to intervene in the federal lawsuit and defend the FTC's ban on noncompetes that Trump's FTC won't. @whitneycwimbish.bsky.social talked to Ric Davidson about his story & why he decided to fight.
Reposted by Prescriptivism Must Die!
When I was a baby youth worker I used to play a media literacy game with my students called "two truths and an opinion" where they had to highlight those in news articles and very often they would have trouble finding sentences that didn't contain leading words.
November 6, 2025 at 1:32 PM
When I was a baby youth worker I used to play a media literacy game with my students called "two truths and an opinion" where they had to highlight those in news articles and very often they would have trouble finding sentences that didn't contain leading words.
I've been wishing I could be out in New England for the foliage (San Diego does not, you may be surprised to learn, look particularly interesting in autumn), but this is an even worse thing to be missing out on! Wish I could be there and I hope others can take advantage of it.
I'm giving a talk on Friday @smithcollege.bsky.social about the surprising parallels in the history of the first vernacular monolingual dictionaries in English and French, part of the SE17 French Studies Conference.
November 5, 2025 at 4:43 PM
I've been wishing I could be out in New England for the foliage (San Diego does not, you may be surprised to learn, look particularly interesting in autumn), but this is an even worse thing to be missing out on! Wish I could be there and I hope others can take advantage of it.
It's still a damn shame the way Chesa Boudin got run out of office, but at least Krasner's sticking around and doing good work.
Democrat Larry Krasner, a national figurehead for reform prosecutors, has won reelection as Philadelphia’s district attorney.
November 5, 2025 at 6:22 AM
It's still a damn shame the way Chesa Boudin got run out of office, but at least Krasner's sticking around and doing good work.
Reposted by Prescriptivism Must Die!
this result sticks out as deserving more attention!
JUST IN: Soren Stevenson, who lost an eye due to a projectile fired by the police during the BLM protests of 2020 in Minneapolis, has won a seat on city council.
@pascalsabino.bsky.social reported on his candidacy last month in a must-read: boltsmag.org/minneapolis-...
@pascalsabino.bsky.social reported on his candidacy last month in a must-read: boltsmag.org/minneapolis-...
As Minneapolis Votes, Some Struggle to Keep Police Violence in the Spotlight - Bolts
Five years after George Floyd, the mayor and his allies on city council claim credit for vast improvements, but critics keep pressing the case for more discipline and police alternatives.
boltsmag.org
November 5, 2025 at 5:47 AM
this result sticks out as deserving more attention!
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My god this is for real one of the most incredible speeches I’ve ever seen by an elected US politician: ‘And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is to dismantle the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This not only how we stop Trump, it’s how we stop the next one.’
Mamdani: "We can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him."
November 5, 2025 at 4:52 AM
My god this is for real one of the most incredible speeches I’ve ever seen by an elected US politician: ‘And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is to dismantle the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This not only how we stop Trump, it’s how we stop the next one.’
We can't tolerate the racist, xenophobic, anti-intellectual, and anti-social campaigns of guys like Cuomo any longer. Voters are saying that it's time for solidarity and standing up for each other. We don't have space for losers trying to split us apart to gain power for themselves. Good riddance.
"Let this be the last time I say [Cuomo's] name as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers to only a few.
a group of men in suits are carrying a coffin .
ALT: a group of men in suits are carrying a coffin .
media.tenor.com
November 5, 2025 at 6:10 AM
We can't tolerate the racist, xenophobic, anti-intellectual, and anti-social campaigns of guys like Cuomo any longer. Voters are saying that it's time for solidarity and standing up for each other. We don't have space for losers trying to split us apart to gain power for themselves. Good riddance.
Reposted by Prescriptivism Must Die!
A TPUSA goon invented a story about these costumes, which had to do with teaching math and not Charlie Kirk. He urged followers to harass the teachers and school.
And when he learned the costumes were worn in 2024... he still insisted the teachers were evil.
Because he's a lying piece of shit.
And when he learned the costumes were worn in 2024... he still insisted the teachers were evil.
Because he's a lying piece of shit.
Math teachers at Cienega High School in Arizona are facing death threats and calls that they be fired after a Turning Point USA employee falsely accused them of wearing Halloween costumes mocking the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Arizona teachers' costumes weren't about Charlie Kirk. They're facing death threats anyway
Math teachers at Cienega High School in southern Arizona are facing death threats and calls that they be fired after a Turning Point USA employee falsely accused them of wearing Halloween costumes mocking the assassination of the organization’s co-founder, Charlie Kirk.
n.pr
November 4, 2025 at 5:23 PM
A TPUSA goon invented a story about these costumes, which had to do with teaching math and not Charlie Kirk. He urged followers to harass the teachers and school.
And when he learned the costumes were worn in 2024... he still insisted the teachers were evil.
Because he's a lying piece of shit.
And when he learned the costumes were worn in 2024... he still insisted the teachers were evil.
Because he's a lying piece of shit.