Author | Lightnews

Neil Serven

@neilserven.bsky.social

860 followers 720 following 2.2K posts

Fiction & essays, novel in progress. Co-owner @federalstbooks.bsky.social . Candlepin bowler. Language stuff. A lot of crank air. Used to write the dictionary. Western Massachusetts.

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Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · May 30

Grateful to @postroadmag.bsky.social for publishing my story WE DON’T JOKE ABOUT SUCH THINGS, which I workshopped quite a long time ago in a Bread Loaf class led by @alixohlin.bsky.social

Cover of POST ROAD 43 in bright green and blue

Brown cat looking over the top of an open lit journal, the title WE DON’T JOKE ABOUT SUCH THINGS visible at the top.

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Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 20h

This might be the bluest World Series since… Royals-Mets?

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 1d

Same way Gob Bluth bragged about the cost of his suit.

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 3d

I have a story there from like four editors ago, before I knew what NFTs were. Does this mean it's now alive and might come back and kill me?

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 5d

Dick Tracy’s on it, everyone.

Carrie Tait @carrietait.bsky.social · 5d

This photo accompanying a news story about the heist at the Louvre is perfection.

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 5d

Was there rain in the forecast? I don’t want to know.

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 5d

“You guys on MySpace?”

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 5d

Who robbed the Louvre? Right answers only.

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 6d

“what appeared to be” you’re really in this racket for the money, aren’t ya

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 6d

They cooked the numbers in November. They know how to do it now, and they will keep doing it because they know they cannot be stopped. Voters in seven swing states did not suddenly decide they didn't care.

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 6d

When real humans—who enjoy being out with other humans, in all their crazy variety—take to the streets, the opposition accuses them of being paid. They need to create a reality through a distortion that happens through algorithms and away from real life.

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 6d

Nobody went to his rainy birthday parade. The only “energy” I ever see about this administration is through billionaire-owned media and cloaked social accounts, and sad selected interviews with characters in regalia.

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 6d

I get that gerrymandering and electoral systems play a big part, and media weakness leads truths to be equivocated and people to be misinformed. And the opponent in November was a black woman. So many variables.

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Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 6d

The dark part of me is like, okay, great, our citizens will turn out to fight fascism. Were people really sleepy about it in November? Federal agents weren’t invading cities then, but the fascism was no secret.

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Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 7d

Covered a 4-hour shift at @federalstbooks.bsky.social today. In my modestly sized town, we sold out of the Constitution, sold 2 copies of Common Sense, and I lent some packing tape to a guy who needed to repair his inflatable dinosaur.

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Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 8d

It's hard to eyeball, but if even one character causes a line to spill over, it's kind of like just slightly moving a table in MS Word and having the whole document be shot to shit.

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 8d

And I believe those are curly brackets {} when they were always square before [].

Reposted by Neil Serven

Kory Stamper @korystamper.bsky.social · 8d

I know this is very "so I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time," but I'm sad that there are no mid-dots in the headwords of the new M-W Collegiate 12th ed. I know only four people in the universe used them, and no one knew what they were really for, but I loved those li'l guys.

Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 9d

I love this book.

A small section of the new Merriam-Webster dictionary, featuring copy editor, copyedit, also copyist and copypasta.

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Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 8d

"I pronounce [word] with three syllables, why do you only show two?" Get thee to a crypt.

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Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 8d

We’ll always have C11, Kory.

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 8d

But I’m also thinking of how many mock definitions used in ads will keep the center dots for aesthetics because designers can’t imagine them differently.

Window decal in a Reykjavik restaurant showing a definition for “gastropub” (noun Brit)

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Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 8d

You know that cutting out the dots saved six pages and several hundred dollars. Why don’t you want to keep dictionaries affordable, Kory?

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Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 8d

Pat Murphy is a cop name. Gimme manager Stubb Hawthorn.

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 10d

See I thought it would kill my witty quips. Thank you for the clarification.

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Reposted by Neil Serven

Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 11d

one of the reasons they're so mad at "no kings" is that they thought they were going to get a different kind of protest. they *want* the black bloc to be out there fighting with the cops. those are the images they've been trying to generate from "go." instead--

newrepublic.com/article/2016...

MAGA Rage at “No Kings” Boils Over—and It Quickly Backfires on Trump

As Trump allies smear the coming protests, a good writer on MAGA skewers the absurdity of these attacks on large swaths of Americans—and explains why our best recourse will be to turn out in force.

newrepublic.com

72 860 3.5K

Neil Serven @neilserven.bsky.social · 11d

Hardcover novels should not exist. Too expensive and unwieldy and nobody wants them.

Characters’ vocabularies are always too broad and their locutions too precise. Even smart people don’t always find the words when they need them, especially in times of stress.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 12d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat