Peter Stockwell
@stockwell.bsky.social
1K followers 1K following 250 posts
Professor of Literary Linguistics At: University of Nottingham In: Sheffield Of: the Boro
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Reposted by Peter Stockwell
linguistlaura.bsky.social
We're hosting this event at @unikent.bsky.social at the end of the month! So excited to hear all the goss about transcribing the House of Lords bickering! It's free and there is wine, so I'm in #linguistics #language
babelzine.bsky.social
📣 The Babel Lecture 2025 - 4 weeks to go...
🧑‍🏫 John Vice - The work of Hansard, and why it matters
🗓️ @kent.ac.uk, Thursday 30 October, 6.30pm

🎟️ Book your free seat at www.kent.ac.uk/whats-on/bab...
Babel Lecture 2025: John Vice on Hansard
Reposted by Peter Stockwell
philsbodydouble.bsky.social
Global Britian doesn't need people with an English degree!
Reposted by Peter Stockwell
quothalinguist.bsky.social
I received copies of my book, How to Create a Language, and couldn’t be happier! Thank you to the team at Cambridge University Press who made this dream a reality, and thank you to all my beautiful supporters! Especially thank you to @dedalvs.bsky.social for always encouraging me! #conlang
A photo of me holding a copy of my textbook. The title is How to Create a Language: The Conlang Guide.
Reposted by Peter Stockwell
engmediacentre.bsky.social
Don't forget about our great-value Mixed Basket 200 Offer, which reduces the cost of every copy to just £5 when your purchase 200 or more of our key publications in any combination: buff.ly/E3bA7rJ
stockwell.bsky.social
We could bring society down with a deliberately wrong colour!
stockwell.bsky.social
Bloomin AI is even taking over pizzas now
stockwell.bsky.social
I put my blue bin out. And within moments a fleet of blue bins emerges along the road.

I am the binfluencer.
stockwell.bsky.social
RIP Brian Patten

As a student in Liverpool I carried round a copy of The Mersey Sound until it was so dog-eared I had to buy another one
Reposted by Peter Stockwell
drpatoc.bsky.social
RIP Tony Harrisson

Saddened to to hear about this great loss. Harrisson was immense. He could do satire, lament, dramatic verse, TV, spoken word poetry, elegy, poetic journalism, translation, dialect - no finer exemplar of the classical vernacular will you find.
Tony Harrison, poet and dramatist, dies aged 88
Known for his outspoken politics, the author was acclaimed for work in theatre, opera, film and TV but wanted to be thought of as a poet above all
www.theguardian.com
stockwell.bsky.social
RIP Tony Harrison

He was kind enough to let me use this poem in my Texture book - one of several of his that invariably make readers cry, specifically at exactly two and a half lines from the end
stockwell.bsky.social
For context, the ads are all ‘This is X’, but when X is a plural it looks a bit weird - especially if you don’t have this context. Of course, the grammar renders the noun phrase as a single abstract conceptual object, so I’m saying this is grammatically fine, even if a bit non-prototypical.
stockwell.bsky.social
Beautifully timed appearance of this ad campaign here for my first year lecture on grammar next week!
stockwell.bsky.social
Dem cats dem cats dem Libble Demcats

He really can’t pronounce the name of his own party

#LibbleDemcats
stockwell.bsky.social
They might just want to hide
stockwell.bsky.social
Bigger, bolder, bodelicious! The new 3rd edition of this textbook just arrived:

www.routledge.com/Studying-the...
stockwell.bsky.social
Summer’s end: tomato chutney it is, then
stockwell.bsky.social
Ok @uniofnottingham.bsky.social Open Day, I’m ready for ya! (Croissant already eaten in Trent Cafe)
stockwell.bsky.social
Speak in full sentences, Ian!
stockwell.bsky.social
There are a surprisingly high number of words for ‘throw’ in English:

sling toss pitch bowl hurl chuck pelt lob biff bombard cast fire fling hoy heave ling yeet …

3/3
stockwell.bsky.social
Old English ‘sceah’ becomes ‘shy’, originally a horse shying away or being startled.

‘Coconut shy’ first appears at fairs around London and Kent from 1873, but ‘shie’ (to throw) is recorded in 1787.

2/3
stockwell.bsky.social
Just on BBC Radio Bristol to talk about the origins of ‘coconut shy’. Shy means throw, here, not timid, and they are completely separate words.

I wonder if Old English sceatan (to throw) leads to the past participle ‘shot’ which is close to ‘shied’? No one knows. 1/3
stockwell.bsky.social
This is going to be as bad as that Thomas the Tank Engine semi-live-action atrocity from a few years ago.

Stop trying to remake perfect art. Go away and have some new ideas, you bloodsucking ghouls.

Children's TV favourite Bagpuss to reawaken for new film www.bbc.com/news/article...
Children's TV favourite Bagpuss to reawaken for new film
It will be the first new official Bagpuss production since the original beloved 1974 series.
www.bbc.com
stockwell.bsky.social
Ah, it has neuter, but ‘guru’ (inevitably) is masculine. Apparently it originally meant ‘heavy’, man