Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 1d

The adding of the 'h' was in the context of the new snobbery about h-rdopping in the 19th c. So, in a way, the dropped H's did help!

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 1d

I keep thinking I've given my last talk re 'please' & 'thank you', but here I am on my way to London to talk about it again.

Because, tbh, it's so much more interesting [to others] than the work I'm doing now. (nevertheless I wrote about the now-work in a newsletter: substack.com/home/post/p-...)

balk baulk bawk!

This time: an unofficial spelling difference, definite definitions, Fernando Pessoa and linky link-links

substack.com

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, and the British only started pronouncing the 'h' in 'herb' in the 19th century (after adding the h to the spelling centuries earlier), well after they'd taken the h-less pronunciation to the Americas.

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Yoïn van Spijk @yvanspijk.bsky.social · 1d

The word 'word' is etymologically related to the word 'verb'.

'Word' was inherited from Proto-Germanic.

'Verb', on the other hand, was borrowed from Latin 'verbum', which also simply meant "word".

They have a common Proto-Indo-European ancestor.

Zoom in on my new infographic to learn more:

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bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 1d

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 1d

Speculative Grammarian, a long-running publication of satirical linguistics, is winding down specgram.com #linguistics

SpecGram—Speculative Grammarian

Speculative Grammarian: the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics.

specgram.com

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 1d

Another one is that 'Eeyore' = 'hee haw"

separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2008/10/some...

some onomatopoeia

separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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Adam Sharp @adamcsharp.bsky.social · 1d

Boosting this as a PSA as it seems not everyone is aware of the Shaun /shorn pun in Shaun the Sheep

Joe Griffin @thejoegriffin.bsky.social · 1d

I keep forgetting that English people add a phoenetic 'r' where there's a vowel. That's why I didn't get that name 'Shaun the Sheep' was a pun for a good 10 years.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 1d

And the unrelated book review at the bottom is for @lynneguist.bsky.social's guide to British–American differences in English, which may be of interest even if you aren't into crosswords: bigdave44.com/2025/10/13/d...

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 1d

Hints and explanations for today's Telegraph cryptic crossword, with a selection of children's characters, music from @sawdoctors.com, and an ambiguous bakery term: bigdave44.com/2025/10/13/d...

It's at a beginner-friendly level. If you don't have access to it ask and I'll send you a guest link.

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 2d

The pharmaceutical add in the US are striking. And in England the gambling ads are out of control

Tom Nichols @radiofreetom.bsky.social · 2d

One of the blissful things about being in Canada was the lack of pharmaceutical ads. It’s amazing how many other products exist in the world- chocolate! Laundry detergent! - that you can hear about if you’re not being told about medullary thyroid cancer

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 2d

This is an obsession of mine - a huge pathology of the press is coverage suggesting that politicians who are less skilled performers are somehow less "authentic"

Me on Romney coverage in CJR: www.cjr.org/united_state...

Me on Hillary Clinton coverage in The Upshot:
www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/u...

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 4d

I strongly urge everyone to not just read this warning from @marcwatkins.bsky.social, but heed it, and be vocal and forceful pushing back against using AI to grade student writing. This must be anathema if we're going to have a world where learning means something. substack.com/inbox/post/1...

The Dangers of using AI to Grade

Nobody Learns, Nobody Gains

substack.com

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Akerbeltz / Mìcheal an Fhaclair / LowRisingTone @akerbeltz.bsky.social · 3d

Nicely put @kscanne.bsky.social! But boy do I hate things being worse than you thought they were ☹️ www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/25/1...

How AI and Wikipedia have sent vulnerable languages into a doom spiral

Machine translators have made it easier than ever to create error-plagued Wikipedia articles in obscure languages. What happens when AI models get trained on junk pages?

www.technologyreview.com

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 6d

repost this if an editor has ever saved you from yourself

violent alien @blipstress.bsky.social · 6d

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

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David Sacerdote @davidsacerdote.bsky.social · 7d

A decade after it was written, I find myself pulling out the @cingraham.bsky.social's gerrymandering explanation to help people understand why California’s Prop. 50 is so important to pass.

wapo.st/3WfcjeB

This is the best explanation of gerrymandering you will ever see

By simplifying gerrymandering we see how problematic it really is.

wapo.st

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Second Mentions @secondmentions.bsky.social · 6d

"the highly intelligent cephalopods" www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/w...

Octopuses Invade the English Coast, ‘Eating Anything in Their Path’

www.nytimes.com

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Second Mentions @secondmentions.bsky.social · 6d

"the famously flexible mollusks" www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...

A new analysis of underwater videos shows octopuses are 'incredible multitaskers'

The research reveals new details about how the famously flexible mollusks coordinate some of the most complex movements in the animal kingdom.

www.nbcnews.com

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University of Manchester Child Study Centre @childstudycentre.bsky.social · 6d

🧠 New research from @OfficialUoM shows that where teachers teach affects how they talk to children — and that matters for language development. #ChildDevelopment #LanguageResearch #EarlyYears #MuseumLearning #UoMResearch #LuCiD

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 6d

GenAI still can't count. It's ironic that it's called 'computation' and tragedy that it's called 'information technology'

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 7d

www.bbc.com/news/article...

MoD spends millions on private schools to avoid Welsh language - BBC News

Military personnel receive a private education allowance to avoid lessons in Welsh in state schools.

www.bbc.com

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 8d

solid language journalism here www.science.org/content/arti...

China bolsters controversial claim to Pacific languages with new museum

Nationalist narrative holds that Austronesian language and culture originated in China, not Taiwan

www.science.org

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Mister Slang @misterslang.bsky.social · 7d

If it's October it must be GDoS Update time. And so it is: #36. A few notes (and a pic of an invaluable supporter) here:
jonathongreen.substack.com/p/gdos-updat...

GDoS Update #36

New material 1 July - 1 October 2025

jonathongreen.substack.com

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 8d

CENSORED: “They refused to run my column this week. Too critical of Trump, they said.”

Writer Dan Conway left The Daily Memphian after editors rejected his column for criticizing Trump’s unconstitutional military incursions into US cities.

Read the censored column: www.facebook.com/share/p/16uP...

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 8d

"By removing the hashtag, tech platforms are redistributing organizational power away from the users and toward themselves. Now they have all the say in who gets to see which topic, and how topics are structured in the first place."
etymology.substack.com/p/why-platfo...

Why platforms are killing the hashtag

Today I write in anticipatory nostalgia for the cornerstone of a more democratic internet—one which is slowly being stolen from us.

etymology.substack.com

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