Jesse Sheidlower
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jessesword.com
Jesse Sheidlower
@jessesword.com
5.1K followers 490 following 2.4K posts
Lexicographer. The F-Word (new edition Nov. ’24!), sfdictionary.com, ex-OED, coder (mainly Perl and Python), Threesome Tollbooth #cocktail bar manager, adjunct @ Columbia.
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jessesword.com
Never too early to start teaching the young about automatic memory management.
Photo of a toy truck in a playground. The truck has "garbage collection" printed on its side.
January 12, 2026 at 1:35 PM
jessesword.com
Other perpetrations of the rude peasants of this household include the use of a perfectly good dictionary as a doorstop. I'm sure Katherine Barber would be happy to know that her life's work is a better choice for this task than, say, a brick.
Picture of a country bedroom, with a countrified bed and a wood-plank floor,looking out onto a snowy landscape, with a copy of the Oxford Canadian Dictionary holding the door open.
January 2, 2026 at 5:26 PM
jessesword.com
I'm out of town, staying at the House of Whorfianism.
My hand, holding a book by a window with snow outside. The book is titled _Grammar for a Full Life: How the Ways We Shape a Sentence Can Limit or Enlarge Us_.
January 2, 2026 at 4:12 PM
jessesword.com
I don't know precisely what ASMR is, but I'm in the woods of far western NY, and it's snowing and it's 5 degrees out, and the sound of the crunching snow is nothing like you get in NYC, and it's extremely pleasant.

(sound on)
January 1, 2026 at 2:43 PM
jessesword.com
Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't nirvana, soundgarden, pearl jam, or alice in chains
Album cover of Richard Thompson's _Rumor and Sigh_
December 28, 2025 at 3:06 AM
jessesword.com
I know this is meant to be a "cool" way of writing "land", but I can't help reading it as a lambda, and then wanting to pronounce it with a [ɬ], as if it were a "cool" way of writing Welsh "ll".
Photo of a children's easel, branded "TINY LAND", but with the "A" stylized without a crossbar, resembling a lambda (Λ)
December 25, 2025 at 1:24 PM
jessesword.com
My all-time personal favorite thesaurus cartoon, from John Jonik:
Cartoon of a picture of a book titled "Roget's Book of Words That mean the Same Thing As Other Words, or Almost the Same Thing."
December 22, 2025 at 3:51 PM
jessesword.com
This seems to be the 10-year anniversary of my nerdiest Twitter post (which has to be saying something), wherein I bitch-slapped @jonathanhoefler.bsky.social for confusing the heraldic terms "rampant" and "segreant".
Twitter exchange with Hoefler&Co., over a picture of a griffin standing on its hind legs with forelegs extended, standing on a type catalog, pouring lead into a mold. Hoefler writes, "Wouldn't you have loved to be in the client meeting for this logo?...'We'd like a rampant gryphon, pouring hot lead into a hand mold, and stomping on our catalog'", to which I reply, "Forgive me for this, but the correct term is 'segreant'. Same leg position, but of 4-footed winged creatures (dragons/griffins)."
December 18, 2025 at 2:16 PM
jessesword.com
Text from a friend, that I have absolutely no idea how to interpret
Screenshot of a text reading "I just watched Realm of Satan. And I thought of you."
December 5, 2025 at 3:59 PM
jessesword.com
Some of us are the in crowd hee hee
Picture of my hand holding a copy of Merriam-Webster's 12th Collegiate
November 18, 2025 at 3:14 PM
jessesword.com
Yessssss
My hand holding a copy of John Darnielle's just-published _This Year_
November 17, 2025 at 10:20 PM
jessesword.com
On Facebook, @straczynski.bsky.social posted pictures of Harlan Ellison's house. Keen-eyed observers will note that among the reference books around his desk can be found the Historical #Dictionary of American Slang (including two copies of volume 2).

www.facebook.com/groups/45866...
Photograph of a desk area; the desktop is cluttered with objects, including a manual typewriter, and is surrounded by (mostly reference) books, in built-in bookcases in front and on the side. If you know what to look for, you can see both volumes of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang on the bottom shelf on the left, and a second copy of volume 2 on the right-hand wall.
November 12, 2025 at 3:07 AM
jessesword.com
My sense of what words might count as "common" vocabulary is, I think, rather different from most people's. Still: is the word _rudder_ really something that anyone needs to have explained?

www.nytimes.com/athletic/677...
"On they rowed, even when one week into the trip, around 350 miles in, a broken rudder (a blade at the rear of a boat used for steering) left them stranded at sea. Repairs were attempted, but even the spare rudder malfunctioned due to what they would later learn was a manufacturing fault."
November 8, 2025 at 2:46 PM
jessesword.com
This weekend's sourdough effort. Looked and tasted pretty great, but I probably overproofed it a bit.
Photo of a boule of sourdough bread, in a cast-iron baker with its top removed and set on the side. Photo of a sourdough boule, cut in half. The crumb has even but relatively small holes.
November 3, 2025 at 1:58 PM
jessesword.com
Got that taken care of. 5m.
Picture of my torso (and a bit of my unshaven face), fearing a "Manhattan votes early" sticker on a blue Shetland sweater under a brown leather jacket, with Manhattan buildings in the background
November 1, 2025 at 3:39 PM
jessesword.com
Charles Barsotti cartoon, featuring a bearded writer writing longhand with a half-smile, and his thought bubble reading "'A writer?', she gasped, her perky breasts heaving. 'God, I _love_ writers!'"
October 31, 2025 at 6:37 PM
jessesword.com
The OED on _aunt_ n. sense 1.b.
1750– A woman who is regarded with respect or affection similar to that often accorded to an aunt (sense 1a) despite not being linked by this specific kinship; esp. a close family friend or (chiefly regional, as a term of respect or affection) an elderly woman. Also as a form of address or as a title preceding a first name. Cf. auntie n. 1b, uncle n. 1b. Frequently as a title. Cf. sense 1a.ii.
October 28, 2025 at 8:25 PM
jessesword.com
Me, remove a DJ? Are you mad?

There is a back band, though:
Photo of the back of Webster's 12th, showing the back band, with typical promo copy
October 17, 2025 at 6:23 PM
jessesword.com
Hey check it out I am as cool as the other cool people on Bluesky!

Seriously, this is really exciting to me.
Photo of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 12th edition, on a glass desk with a small stack of books in the background, &c.
October 17, 2025 at 5:43 PM
jessesword.com
Email that I probably shouldn't open
Screenshot of a command-line email reader (Mutt), showing an unread message from Sunspel with the subject "The Sunspel Bespoke T-shirt Service"
October 17, 2025 at 2:19 PM
jessesword.com
@lancerichardson.bsky.social being interviewed by @shamblanderson.bsky.social at the NYPL, for the publication of True Nature, his biography of Peter Matthiessen
Picture of Sam Anderson interviewing Lance Richardson on stage at the New York Public Library
October 14, 2025 at 10:39 PM
jessesword.com
This anecdote is found in D.G. Wells's _Recreations in Logic_ (1979):
The curate of Lower Purdham was notorious for his fiery sermons, not least with his uncle, who was the local landowner and bigwig and did not appreciate what he took to be frequent references to his wealth and social position. One day his uncle and aunt were visiting him as he was preparing one of his sermons and his aunt, glancing over his shoulder was horrified to see that it started off, in the curate’s hand, “UNCLE AND I SHALL OWE DEVIL . . .” Quite apart from the poor standard of English, this was clearly going to be a hellfire sermon of the first order, and she hastened to tell her husband. In the ensuing explosion a lot of hard words were spoken, but to no purpose, as became apparent when the curate explained how his sermon actually started. How did it start?
October 14, 2025 at 1:05 AM
jessesword.com
Here's one additional example, albeit from a self-published novel (Ryan Rayston, The Quiet Sound of Disappearing, 2011):
Screenshot from a book, reading in relevant part "The next day, ready to Agatha Christie the information, I applied for a job at Elan. I was hired on the spot."
October 13, 2025 at 7:24 PM
jessesword.com
Do you have an allergy to LaTeX? Try groff instead!

(Shamelessly copied from @[email protected] on Mastodon.)
A laminated A4 poster with the title "Do YOU have an ALLERGY?" with three icons, but the icon for latex is the logo for LaTeX the typesetting tool.
October 10, 2025 at 1:26 PM
jessesword.com
By complete coincidence, I was at one of my favorite bars in Brooklyn, Tooker Alley, tonight, and they had the Diamondback on the menu! Of course it was great.
Photo of a bar menu including a barely visible description of the Diamondback cocktail, illuminated by candlelight, with a Diamondback-cocktail-containing Nick and Nora glass in the shot.
October 10, 2025 at 2:51 AM